21/22 School Year Plans

 I clicked publish on my last blog post, detailing our 20/21 school year plans, then I turned my head to answer a kid's question and by the time I turned my head back, it was time to write the 21/22 post. That's seriously how it feels. Yesterday we started the 20/21 school year, this morning we started our summer break and now tomorrow we start the 21/22 year. Sam's last year of elementary school, Henry's first year of Kindergarten. Sure. Ok. Fine. It's fine. I'm fine.

I probably say this every single year, but I'm feeling especially excited to start this year! I've put a lot of work into planning and reworking things. I like to sit down at some point, not long after we start summer break, and look back over our year to find the weak spots. Then while I'm getting our curriculum and book lists in order, I can put my focus on those weak spots and try some new things. This year our big changes are in history, art and music, organization, and scheduling. I'm feeling confident about the changes I've made and I'm really looking forward to getting started!

So this year Sam will be in 5th grade, Kate in 3rd, Henry in Kindergarten, and 2 little tag along sisters. We are still homeschooling using the Charlotte Mason method, which means formal lessons start at age 6. For Sam and Kate, with summer birthdays, that meant 1st grade. Henry won't be 6 until later in the fall, so this year is Kindergarten for him, but we will do a little more structure than we have for Kindergarten in the past. I'm not following any specific curriculum for him, just piecing a few things together, starting off easy, and increasing the amount of work he does as the year goes on. 

For Sam and Kate we are still mostly using Ambleside Online, though this year I have deviated from their schedule and book list more than I ever have in the past. The biggest thing I did was remove the main history spine they use and replaced it with some of our own things. For Kate it's a lot of smaller books instead of 1 and for Sam I chose to switch to Joy Hakim's History of US series. My main goal in tweaking the history choices is to make sure they're hearing from a variety of voices. Including indigenous and Black history is important to me because indigenous and Black history is American history. Sometimes history is uncomfortable to read. Often it's ugly. I don't want to whitewash over that. 

I've also chosen our own folk songs, hymns, artists, and composers. Ambleside has some great schedules for these subjects, and they aren't always only white men, but there were some artists that I really wanted us to cover this year and I just wanted some more control over the music, hoping the kids will connect a little more than they have in the past.

I'm organizing our school things a little differently this year too. I got plastic milk crates for their binders, math books, etc. We're going to keep those in the dining room, planning on doing most of our work in there this year. Julia is not content to play somewhere where she can't see me and/or the big kids. In the dining room she (and Anna if she wants, though she's better at independent play) can color or play with play doh or puzzles while I'm doing Kindergarten work with Henry or reading with Kate. Sam largely works independently now, but he has lots of quiet places to go to after going over things with me at the table. I also got us a big dry erase/bulletin board to hang in the dining room during school time. I thought it would be nice to be able to keep our art study displayed there all week, instead of only bringing it out while we're studying it. I will also keep our weekly schedule here, and write the date, plus our composer and artist with their dates of birth. I got us the coolest lazy susan caddy to make supplies like pencils and markers easy to access at the table. It makes my school supply loving little heart so very happy.

It's so cute and colorful!

The crates are here for now and I hate it. When we put the high chair away soon though, they'll have a more tucked away corner to live in.

This marketplace purchase last year is still amazing. All of our books are here.

In the cabinet of the big shelf I have all of our math manipulatives and all of the toddler/preschool fine motor games and activities that I've put together over the years. 

I've also solidified our schedules a little bit. I kept a lot of flexibility in some of our subjects we only do weekly before, and that was fine, but it made it too easy to skip things. Making a schedule doesn't mean I can't still be flexible, but I usually do better with a firmer plan. I also made daily and weekly schedules in page protectors inside Sam and Kate's binders, so they can check things off themselves as they go. I tried this for Sam last year, but put it up in his room at his desk. I really thought he'd utilize that quiet space every day, but he didn't do even 1 minute of school work up there last year, so the schedule went unused. This year it's right inside their binders, so it will be visible for them no matter where they do their work. I've kept our weekly reading schedules the same. Not going to fix what isn't broken. I sit down on Sundays and assign a day to each reading, based on what our week looks like.

This will go on our big bulletin board.

These are in my binder alongside the attendance and book logs we need to keep to comply with the PA homeschooling laws.

Kate's schedule in her binder

Sam's schedule in his binder

Last year, after our Bible, poetry readings, and memory work during breakfast, we split up to get dressed and do chores, then met up for Swedish Drill (I've talked a little about drill before, but it's basically structured Simon Says, gross motor skills to stretch their bodies and get the wiggles out, plus good listening practice). We followed drill with some folk tale or ancient history study all together. I really loved starting our day together like that last year, so I made some more intentional plans for group reading this year. I have 2 plans from Amber over at the Heritage Mom Blog, Melanated Tales we started and loved last year, so we'll finish that up this year. The little kids especially really loved the African folk tales. I also have Amazing Africa and we'll use that for a deep dive into the continent in the 2nd half of our year. We'll also use this time to read folk tales from other cultures and biographies of interesting people from history. I'll utilize the library heavily for this, but I have some already planned and ready to go.

We'll also continue to do nature study together (I cannot even fully express my love from Exploring Nature with Children, even 3 years in now). Sam and Kate will also be doing their own nature study using a guide from Blossom and Root to plant their own garden plot. I had planned to do this with Sam last year, but it just didn't happen. I purchased the curriculum as a pdf and actually had it printed by The Homeschool Printing Company this year and I think that will make me much more likely to actually use it.

The big 2 kids have their own geography to do, their own chapters to read, their own maps to fill, but we also do some geography all together. I love this beautiful Maps book we have. It has been out every day the past week that we've been watching the Olympics, learning the flags and locations of the countries we see competing. 

We'll continue our dabbling in French together. We've mostly just been learning words and short phrases here and there, reading a few French picture books. We'll continue with that and hopefully add in a little more later in the year.

We will also continue experimenting with handicrafts together. Last year finger knitting was a huge hit. I'd like us to do more watercolors and pastels this year. Sam has also been very into whittling and wants to try some bigger projects this year.

For 5th grade this year, Sam will be studying history from the end of the 18th century, up to the start of World War I. That's a wide span of history, but this won't be his first time through so we don't need to hit absolutely everything that happened. Hoping to give him a balanced, diverse picture of the main points. He will continue mapping and entering things into his book of centuries. Last year he ended up still using our big roll out history timeline, but this year I think he's ready to move onto his own book of centuries. All of his history readings, like his readings for all of his other subjects, will be narrated either orally or on paper

For Language Arts he has literature to read and narrate, copywork, cursive practice, journal writing, grammar, studied dictation, plus he will be doing 2 written narrations per week at the beginning of the year, hopefully working up to 3 per week.

For science, Sam will continue studying Physics and Engineering, moving into human anatomy by the end of the year. He started this curriculum from Blossom and Root last year, but we went through it slowly on purpose to make it last 2 years. He's really been enjoying this and I'm glad I embraced his personal learning style and preferences last year to deviate from Ambleside's science. This is such a good fit for him.

We are continuing with Horizons for Math, typing.com for typing (he really loved this last year!), and Getting Started With Latin. He only dipped a baby toe into Latin last year and we're feeling ready to get more into it this year. He also has drawing practice, piano practice, and weekly recitation. His crate is much more full that Kate's or Henry's. Our one binder system has worked great up until now, but last year his binder just about exploded, so this year he has a 5 subject notebook for written narrations. His binder will still have space for copywork, blank maps, math drill sheets, and blank paper for recording his science experiments and labs. Journaling is new for us this year. Everybody is excited about it so far because I let them get any notebook they wanted for it. Yes, even characters. If Mario and Luigi on the cover will get Sam excited about journal writing, I am here. for. it.

For 3rd grade, Kate is focusing on the 15th and 16th century. We're taking a new approach and using several different shorter books with pictures. I think this is going to be a good fit for Kate and it's going to help us read a wider variety of perspectives from this time. She will continue narrating orally only, mapping, and recording events on our big roll out timeline.

Kate's Language Arts will be reading and narrating literature, copywork, cursive work, and journaling. Kate is reading really well these days, so a big goal for her this year will be to start doing a few readings on her own. 

For science, in addition to our group nature study and her garden plot with Sam, Kate is studying animals and habitats. She'll also be using Drop of Water to do some fun kitchen experiments and learn some basic water science. She's excited about this because she remembers when Sam did the experiments.

Kate will also be using Horizons for math, we've been so happy with it so far. She will have weekly recitation, piano practice, and drawing practice as well. Her binder has space for copywork, blank maps, math drill sheets, and blank paper for making any extra notes or drawings for drawn narrations or geography lessons.

My Kindergarten plan for Henry is pretty simple. Phonics, math, some basic copywork, lots of nature study, tons of reading. He already knows how to write all of the letters and knows several of their sounds, so we are on our way to more regular copywork and early stages of reading. We'll start the year playing games to solidify all of the letter sounds before moving on to blends and starting to fill his word notebook and read some simple readers. I used Discover Reading with Kate and loved it so much. I am very excited to use it again with Henry. He's very excited too which is the most important thing for sure! I am going to focus on multicultural picture books for him this year, loosely using Beautiful Feet's Read Around the World program and our library. For the first half of the year we'll just read, but after Christmas I'm going to have him try orally narrating a couple times a week since he'll be 6. I'm excited because Kindergarten is exciting, but also because so far the hardest part of homeschooling has always been the kids who aren't actually doing school work. Henry starting school this year is one less non school kid to keep track of during school hours and that's no small milestone in this house!

So there we go! As always, I expect this to change and evolve quite a bit as the year goes on, but I feel confident and ready to start our year with these plans as they are. We are hoping to get some more field trips in, as safe as we can, this year. We've really missed them the last year and a half. We're getting back into extra curricular activities this year too. We are having a nice summer, but the thought of structure and planned activities and routines is so attractive to me right now! Can't wait to dive in to what will surely be another wonderful school year!

2020/2021 School Plans!

 August is my New Years. I've said it before here. I feel much more of a 'fresh start' feeling in August than I ever do on January 1st. This year, in this strange, pandemic induced, groundhog day sort of limbo we're in, August is feeling like even more of a fresh start than normal. Our final term of school last year, while nowhere near as disrupted as non-homeschoolers, was kind of an anxious mess and we hurriedly finished school 2 weeks earlier than originally planned with a gigantic sigh of relief. I threw myself into making the summer count, despite knowing it wouldn't look anything like the summers we're used to. We did it up big. Movies every afternoon, so many nights up past bedtime, camping both in the yard and at an actual campsite, loooots of marshmallows, ice cream sundaes, bubbles, hours in the pool, baking, obstacle courses in the yard, hiking. By the time we made it to August, I was feeling pretty tired and desperate for a routine, and I don't think I was alone. 

Falling back into our school routine always feels good after a summer of no (or at least less) routine. This year though, it feels like taking a stand and establishing ourselves. Okay Covid World. Let's do this. This is what our days will look like this fall and winter. We are ready. Let's do this. We know our local, not overly populated hiking trails. We know how to work the library's curbside system. We've got our masks when/if we need to go out in public. Let's go.

On top of those feelings, I'm feeling so excited for this school year because I'm changing up aspects of our curriculum. Some things I have changed or added to in order to make sure the history my kids are getting is less whitewashed and Euro-centric. I am so grateful for the homeschool bloggers, FB groups, and friends out there also on this journey that have helped me find such awesome books to enrich our schooling and bring more truth into everything we're learning. 

I also reminded myself that Ms. Charlotte Mason herself said, "Children are born persons." Not, "Children are born ready to slot into the curriculum you choose and stay there fitting happily for the rest of their school career, happily followed by each of their siblings in the same exact way." First of all, that's nowhere near as snappy and second of all, how silly is that? Of course kids are going to change and be different from one another. So, remembering that my children (namely Sam in this case) were born persons, I decided to veer off from our usual science plans and found something that looks more interesting to him while still fitting in with our family's philosophy on education.

Now, without further ado, here's our round up of school plans for this year! For reference: Sam just turned 9 and is in 4th grade, Kate is just about to turn 7 and is in 2nd grade, Henry is 4 and considered 'pre-k', Anna is almost 3 and considered 'preschool', and Julia is 9 months old. Only Sam and Kate are formally schooling this year. In this post I talk about what we do for preschool thru Kindergarten.

4th Grade

We are still largely using Ambleside Online as our main curriculum. I am substituting some free reads and have incorporated some different history spines into our schedule to make sure we are getting a full picture. Some of these history books I will later begin in 1st grade, so to catch Sam and Kate up to the sections I've marked off for 2nd and 4th, we are reading the parts marked for 1st in the morning before splitting up to individual tasks. One of these books is Turtle Island: The Story of North America's First People by Eldon Yellowhorn and Kathy Lowinger, another is African Beginnings by James Haskins and Kathleen Benson. African Beginnings is the first book in a series that we will use coordinating with that grade's history period, Turtle Island is a longer book and I will use different portions for different years. We are also flipping through Joy Hakim's The History of US series as we do our other history readings. It's important to me that we read as much of an unbiased history as we can, but also be able to point out and call out biases when we do come across them. As part of his history instruction this year, Sam will begin keeping a Book of Centuries, marking well known people and events under the appropriate time.

We are still using copywork for handwriting practice and learning sentence structure and basic grammar. I found copywork books on Amazon this year that Sam and Kate have so far been enjoying. When those run out I'll go back to writing out sentences or short passages from other school books or poetry for them to copy. Sam already knows cursive, but prints his copywork. I have cursive practice books that he will start using later in the year to keep those skills sharp. I don't like to introduce everything in the very beginning of the year. We hold off on some things until Christmas or after. 

New for Sam this year is more formal grammar instruction. We are using grammar cards from The Good and the Beautiful and will also start playing Mad Libs later this year to work on those skills.

Horizons is still our math curriculum of choice. We are doing it a year behind so that we match up with when Horizons stops their math levels and I want to start Teaching Textbooks for higher math. However, we've been going through lessons fairly quickly, so we may skip ahead a little and start a split year. Half the year a year back, half the year on 'grade level'. We'll see how that goes.

Sam is starting some very basic Latin this year. He is pretty excited about this since he is so interested in science and animals. He has been telling me all of the Latin words he already knows so I can't wait to see how he does with this program. Getting Started With Latin comes highly recommended by other homeschool families.

For Geography, in addition to reading through the scheduled lessons in Elementary Geography and Charlotte Mason's Geography and mapping his other readings, Sam will be starting map drills this year. When I ordered The Good and the Beautiful's grammar cards, they came with a set of geography cards as well so we will use those as well as geography games from Seterra.

We'll continue with our recitation rotation of a Psalm, a passage from the Old Testament, a passage from the New Testament, and a poem to work on public speaking skills, memorization, and reading fluency. We'll also be adding in studied dictation this year. I've typed out some short-ish passages, one per week. Sam will read each passage carefully throughout the week and then will copy it down as I read it every Friday. We'll use this to make up spelling lists and to further work on grammar. 

For science and nature study this year, I've pre-ordered the 4th grade science and nature study from Blossom and Root. We haven't received the actual curriculum yet, but have purchased the books to go with it (it's a Charlotte Mason based program, so of course there's a good stack of books!) and Sam has been poring over them in his free time. He'll be studying engineering and anatomy and his nature study will be yearlong care of his own garden plot. We can't wait to get the curriculum and dive into that!

He is going to continue working through Art for Kids: Drawing and he has asked for a simple Dover drawing book for fun/extra practice.

The biggest hit for Sam after finishing our first week of school seems to be typing. He's been showing some interest in the computer after using so much Zoom all spring and summer, so I figured now was a good time for him to learn how to use it. We're just using the free program on typing.com (which I can't link to because the site is undergoing maintenance until Sunday. I'll come back to edit and link on Sunday if I remember!) It's simple and so far so good!

2nd Grade

Kate is also using mostly Ambleside Online with the same history modifications, just tailored to the period of time she's in right now. I'm also using Exploration and Conquest by Betsy Maestro because it presents a more balanced view of white people coming to North America than the books already scheduled. She is going to continue with her personal life timeline to work on better grasp of the passage of time, but midway through the year she will start marking historic events and notable people on our roll out timeline already begun by Sam.

Kate is capable of reading well, but struggles with the confidence to make her a very fluent reader. So we're using phonics cards from The Good and the Beautiful and a movable alphabet (there are some beautiful wooden ones on Etsy, but due to financial restraints, we have a foam and magnetic version found on Amazon). We also use Banagrams tiles for word building. I want to spend the beginning of the year reviewing all of the rules she already knows and then work on confidence reading simple picture books and chapter books together. She read Psalm 23 in its entirety just this morning for her weekly recitation and needed very little help. There's a fluent reader inside her, we just need to coax it out this year.

She will also be doing a copywork book I found and then copying things I've written out for her once the book is completed. Handwriting Without Tears sells great primary lined paper for handwriting practice and I like their workbooks too for extra practice. Kate will be using their beginner cursive book later on this year.

Kate's geography will also be from Elementary Geography, Charlotte Mason's Geography, and mapping her readings. We will also work on filling in a few blank maps to help her learn all of the continents, oceans, and states.

She is going to use a Dover drawing book for drawing practice, we just haven't picked which one yet!

Last year Kate memorized a poem each term for recitation, but as her reading improves, she'll move into the same recitation rotation as Sam (with her own passages) reading weekly out loud from her recitation folder.

All Together

We will be continuing our routine of Bible reading, devotions, prayers, poetry, and memory work all together over breakfast as well as our art and music study over lunch. For music study we will loosely follow Ambleside's scheduled hymn, folk song, and composer studies, but will substitute sometimes to make sure we're presenting a diverse field, same for our art study. Right now they look at our current art study on my computer while listening to the music. I read them artist and musician bios, but keep it brief. The main point right now is appreciation. Sam and Kate are also going to make their way through Alfred's beginner piano book for kids. We started it last year, but then abandoned it when end of pregnancy and then baby and then pandemic (yikes) just got to be way too much.

We have been slowly working through Cherrydale Press' French together. It's simple and very basic, conversational French. The have suggestions for more advanced instruction later on, but for now this works. We will also listen to French songs for children on YouTube.

Sam does have his own specific nature study this year, but he will still participate in our family nature study. We follow Exploring Nature with Children which has a different theme for every week of the year. We read the blurb in the main book, borrow books from the library that are on theme, and bring our focus to the theme while we're playing outside or hiking that week, marking notable finds in our nature journals.

Some handicrafts we are planning on doing together this year are continuing with Paper Sloyd, sewing practice, watercolor, pastels, soap carving, and finger knitting.

This year I purchased an African Folktales curriculum from Heritage Mom Blog and all of the beautiful books on the booklist she includes. We are reading through those together in the mornings.

We still begin our days with Swedish Drill (basically structured Simon Says). I've thought about moving it to after school, but it just works so well to get us started.

I have played around a little bit with how I schedule things this year. Sam will be more responsible for keeping track of his own tasks. I'm keeping his weekly task sheet, as well as the daily and weekly task sheets I keep for both of them in page protectors so I can just mark things off with a dry erase marker and then start fresh each week. I still keep the scheduled readings in my binder along with our attendance sheets and book logs.

This year I tried to organize and freshen up our collection of quiet baby/toddler/preschooler activities to try and give us a smoother year. I want to very strongly emphasize that I do not do any of these activities with my little guys. I still very firmly believe in staying pretty hands off until they're 6. But these are some fun activities that make them feel like they're part of our morning. I've made most of them with scraps from the recycling bin and my ideas are 100% from Pinterest. We're only a week in, but so far everything I've pulled out has been well received and helpful in buying me at least a little bit of time.

And where do I keep all of this? I change that up every year it feels like, but this year feels like the most streamlined our school things have ever been! I found this bookshelf/cabinet combo on FB Marketplace last weekend and it fits all of our stuff, plus looks pretty! I have been loving not only having everything in just one spot, but also having everything easily accessible by the kids so I don't always have to be the one fetching everything (but the 2 littlest girls can't quite open the heavy magnet cabinet doors, which is also a win!)

I think that's about it! Our first week has gone really well and I am so excited to learn alongside these kids this year. 

What's Keeping Me (somewhat) Sane Right Now

Back in January (approximately 400 years ago, right?) I kept coming across all of these, "What's Saving My Life Right Now" or "What's Keeping Me Sane Right Now" blog posts and I loved reading them. They made me think about all the little things that help me get through the cold, dark days of winter and I thought it would be super fun to write a similar post of my own. Life with a very needy 2 month old baby meant that I never did get around to writing it and then came... March. Things started closing or getting cancelled and stay at home orders started rolling out. Life as we knew it had been completely shaken up. The idea of writing a blog post about the things keeping me sane seemed laughable at best because what was 'sane' anymore? Every day was different and I couldn't concentrate on anything at all. My focus, or what remains of my focus 5 kids later, was non existent. What was keeping me sane? Ummm...?

2 months (!!) later, and this idea of listing the things keeping me going right now feels relevant and doable again. My brain doesn't feel quite as chaotic, anxious place these days (most days anyway), and I feel equipped to articulate what all is helping me along day to day. My hope in sharing this post is that maybe somebody will find something that they themselves want to try, but at the very least I want to try to capture this surreal moment in time to look back on in the future.

So here we go. Here's some of the things helping me at least attempt to stay sane at home for 2 months and counting with 5 small children, in the midst of a global pandemic (yikes).

*A devotional and some scripture reading first thing in the AM.
I've always enjoyed a morning devotional, but I haven't had the brain space to dive into one of my favorite devotional books or a full Bible study lately. Besides the whole pandemic thing, there's the whole postpartum with a very needy baby thing. The app 'First 5' has been perfect. It's quick and to the point, and I can read it on my phone before I've even sat all the way up in bed yet.

*Minimal news reading, but still SOME news reading.
For a few years now I get an email from The Skimm every morning. Each email is a concise overview of some of the big news points from the last 24 hours. They include links to read more if you want to, but just skimming (see where their name comes from?) the email helps me feel knowledgeable without feeling overwhelmed.

And then of course there's John Krasinski's amazing YouTube weekly news show, Some Good News. He did 8 episodes and every single one made me cry. If you haven't watched them yet, GO NOW.

*Getting ready every day.
I don't mean like full hair and makeup. But I do mean changing out of my pjs into leggings and a clean shirt and brushing my hair before redoing my top knot. It's often really tempting to skip all of this, but the mornings I wash my face, brush my teeth, make my bed, get dressed, and brush my hair set me up for days where I don't feel like I'm going to fall asleep before lunch. It has proved important for the kids too. We do have the occasional pj day, but mostly they get fully dressed and I do the girls' hair.

*Music
I've been making a LOT of playlists. Show tunes especially have been clutch.

*Reading
My first thought when I knew we wouldn't be going anywhere for a while was, "I AM GOING TO GET SO MUCH READING DONE!" This wasn't immediately the case. I struggled to stay focused enough to finish books quickly. That has gotten better with time though, especially if I mix up the types of books I'm reading to keep things interesting. Without the library, I'm having to change my normal reading habits. The Libby app to borrow ebooks and audiobooks has been great, but since so many people are using it right now, most books have holds and some have LONG holds. I don't usually buy many books, but I've needed to lately. ThriftBooks has always been my go to for our books for school and books for Christmas/Birthday gifts for the kids, but I've ordered myself a few from there lately as well. Great prices for used books and they carry new releases too!

I also just joined Book of the Month, which I'm really excited about. I should actually be getting my first book tomorrow! The way it works is, you pay $14.99/month for a book credit. Each month they release 5 titles for you to choose from (and you also have the option of looking back into their archives and choosing from there). If you want to skip a month, you just click 'skip' instead of choosing a book and your credit rolls over to the next month. Since they're hardcover, fairly new releases, that's a good price! It's going to give me something super fun to look forward to, which is another big plus. Fully shameless plug here: I have a referral link for Book of the Month. If you want to try it out and go through my link, you can get your first month for $9.99 (and I get a book credit!) So here's my referral link if you want to try!

*Baking
Baking has always been soothing to me. It's also been helpful lately to make our groceries stretch since we're trying to only send James out for them twice a week. Every Wednesday (I am craving structure and making it wherever I can!) I make a batch of muffins to eat for breakfast the next 2 days. It's Wednesday as I type this and I'll be making blueberry muffins later this afternoon! I've been making a lot of bread (since James was able to score a bulk bag of flour and my mom was able to find me some yeast! Yeast and flour are like gold right now!) and baking different treats with the kids. They made brownies totally on their own a few weeks ago!

Here's one of my favorite muffin recipes

*Barely planned projects with the kids
I do love a planned craft and there are some seriously cute ones floating around the social media sphere right now, but what's been working best for us lately is me putting out the materials and letting them do what they will with them. Setting out paints, making a batch of play doh, getting out a couple pairs of scissors and some glue and then just letting them have at it. I shared on my Instagram recently that, when the kids are in a funk, water (bath, sprinkler, pool, etc), outside time, and art in any form can turn their moods around.  Which leads into my next thing...

*Outside
It's good for the kids and just as good for me. This past weekend it was warm enough to get out our sprinkler and fill up the little pool. Laying on a big blanket in the shade with Julia while the big kids played in the pool was amazing and I'm looking forward to a lot more of that in the future. The only thing missing from our house and yard that we love so much is easy access to a place for walks. I would absolutely love to be taking regular walks together right now, but the best I can do is loops around the yard without driving somewhere else. Our favorite place to hike has just reopened though. Hopefully soon we'll be able to hike a couple miles there on a day when it isn't too crowded.

*Deliberate mommy time outs
This is a little easier right now because Julia's in that super distracted nursing phase, so I have to go upstairs to my room a few times a day just to get her to eat well. But I've realized those deliberate quiet moments have been incredibly important to my sanity lately. Especially in the evening. James has been working late and Julia gets hungry right around dinnertime. By then I've been stretched pretty thin and one of the hardest parts of the day is still ahead of me. Putting dinner on the table for the big kids and taking 5 to 10 minutes upstairs to nurse Julia, listen to music, and take some deep breaths is very helpful. Same goes for the mid-bedtime routine breather I take while the big 3 kids are finishing cleaning up the playroom. I take the little girls upstairs to get in their pjs and have a little snuggle.

*Disney +
The kids watch 1 movie every afternoon and having all of the old classics available has been amazing.
They get stuck easily (right now its the Lion King movies over and over and over) so on Mondays we have New Movie Monday and they have to watch something they've never seen. We've also been loving the Disney Family Sing-a-Longs!

*Podcasts
My favorite time of day right now is when I'm making dinner and folding laundry while Julia is napping in the wrap and I'm listening to a podcast. Here's my favorites if you're looking for something new:

Novel Pairings
Sara and Chelsey, both high school english teachers, read a different classic every other week, talk about it a bit, and then each offer 3 book recommendations along the same theme or feeling as the classic. Since they've had some extra time on their hands lately they've been recording bonus episodes on their 'off' weeks too where they've talked about comfort reads, poetry, and a really excellent Edith Wharton short story. Their goal isn't for people to read the classics with them, and you can definitely listen if you haven't read the books, but I have really been enjoying reading along! Sprinkling some classics in with my regular classics feels like it's helping keep my brain from turning to complete mush.

He Read She Read
Chelsey (same Chelsey from Novel Pairings) and Curtis, a married couple, discuss books they've read, make recommendations, and occasionally do buddy reads. Their show is on a hiatus right now because Curtis is deployed, but they've been around for a while, so there are a lot of episodes in their backlog.

What Should I Read Next
Anne Bogel (Modern Mrs. Darcy) talks to a different reader every week about their reading life and then they tell her 3 books they loved, 1 they didn't, and what they're currently reading so she can recommend them a few new reads.

Office Ladies
Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly) and Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin) from The Office are watching and discussing an episode a week. They're up to Season 3, episode 1, so a fair amount of episodes in their backlog to binge listen to!

Showmance
Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang) and Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams) from Glee are watching and discussing season 1 of the show right now.

*Working out
I need to do some sort of movement every day or I get really mean. BodyFit By Amy on YouTube has a ton of really great workouts. I highly recommend checking her out, especially if you are pregnant or postpartum! Also on YouTube, Katherine Morgan has been uploading some really awesome ballet class videos for different levels. I did an Int/Adv barre the other day and it felt absolutely amazing.

*Babywearing
The fact that I do not know how to effectively and sanely parent without babywearing is nothing new, but it deserves mention here. Julia's last nap of the day right now is always in the wrap and doing things around the kitchen with her asleep on my chest is like therapy for me right now.

*My husband
James' job is considered essential and he's been working quite a lot of overtime, so I'm not seeing more of him right now than I normally do or anything, but I'm just especially grateful to see another adult at the end of the day. He recently had to isolate from us at home due to potentially being exposed to somebody who ended up being covid-positive and at the end of that isolation I was more grateful than ever not only that he was healthy, but for the extra set of hands, even if they're only around sometimes.

Coming up with this list has actually been really fun. Life is hard right now and there is way too much scary uncertainty, but remembering all of the little things that have been bringing me some joy and some calm lately has been a great exercise! I'm curious to know what keeps you sane? Either in these weird Corona days, or just normally. Because we all need something (or multiple things), right? I hope you get a chance to see/do/hear/etc your things today.