I’m Gina, mama of 3 boys ages 9, 6 and 4… trying to keep life happy and fun during these difficult times of the Coronavirus Pandemic…
The restrictions have gone from school cancelled for a month to no groups larger to 50 then 10 and now all playgrounds are closed and you need to just play with your immediate family… so we are making the best of brother time together.
Here are some of my ideas for the week…
A World of Hearts
We put a teddy bear in a doctor outfit blowing hearts across 4 windows to bring joy and show support to all those people out there that are working so hard for all of us…
The boys helped put the hearts on and I showed them some of the heartfelt videos about the amazing things going on right now to help people who are sick. I watch “We Will Rise Up” so so many times with tears rolling down my cheeks…this has always been a favorite song, but now it has so much more meaning…I am so so so thankful for all those special people in our world.
Calendar
I set up my old teaching calendar in our dining room to start us off each day together in our “homeschool.”
The boys have started to each each other DOL (Daily Oral Language) and use dry erase boards to help each other and correct mistakes.
We also have a game called “What’s in the bag” and the kids hide objects in our house and ask yes and no questions to each other.
I usually find some matching activity in the old supplies for Kellen to do….this one was matching capital and lower case letters then putting them all in ABC order.
Logan used these window crayons to write a “How to Make Lucky Charm Bars” on the window.
Which I later typed up for him and he will illustrate.
Mix up Daily Life
One of the things I’ve had to do is creatively mix up daily life…tents in the playroom? Yes! Let’s do it!
Play games underneath blanket forts? You bet!
Jump into a giant pile of stuffies? Why not!
Bounce house in the playroom? Definitely.
Hot dog roast in the backyard? Oh yeah!
I am constantly trying to keep one step ahead of the boys thinking of some silly and interesting way to mix up the day.
After we watched the movie Onward…they boys created their own magic wands
As hard as it is… with so many emotions… I am trying to take time to just enjoy these special little boys sunggled in our bed for movie night…
Just taking time to enjoy their giggles as they innocently watch Disney movies…
Outside Games
The boys found my old Stroller Strides bands and are using them to play horse with.
Owen has made a challenge for himself to practice pitching. My husband measured out the distance from the pitching mound to a tree so he tries to practice each day.
The boys created an obstacle course out of lids from our garage and other random items… I love hearing them cheer their brothers on!
There was major excitement over finding a frog…
cute little guy…
And Cosmic Kids Yoga gave me 30 min to do my laundry!
Family Games
We’ve taken this time to get out some of our board games in the closet…
Black Jack is a game my husband plays with them where he is the dealer, and even 4 year old Kellen can play by deciding his bet. The big bros help him to add up his cards (math skills with quick addition for the win!).
The boys also re-discovered UNO Attack and love the excitement of pressing that button!
Little Kellen loves the kids version of Sequence…
He also loves his cute little card holder.
Blockus has been a fun game for the boys as well. It’s great that it can challenge all 3 of them at the level they are at… Kellen can place the squares in where they fit while the other boys can use more strategy in getting rid of all the shapes.
And… Trouble has also been a great game for them.
Eye Found It is a very fun Disney game.
Games teach many things – rule following, counting, taking turns, compassion…
We love puzzles!
We also love to play restaurant with this little guy and his ice cream set…and he’s wearing the apron I made him a while back.
Cooking and Baking
We have made many recipes together during this time…
We made French Breakfast Puffs with our Babycakes Cake Pop Maker.
Owen made our favorite banana bread…
Yumm!
Dutch Babies are our Sunday tradition…
Love to have my helper…
We also made Confetti Cookies… we are having more desserts than usual but… that’s how it goes when making life in quarantine fun!
Love my little helpers. 
Playdoh is always fun! Especially in a Spiderman costume.
This kept them occupied for more than an hour…
And… tried to keep veggies and fruit looking entertaining as well!
My mom made me these hot dog men as a kid, so I had to pass on the tradition…
We also mixed up some bubbles!
Sorting and Drawing
My boys love this large butcher paper….
I set this project up for Kellen to place 100 stickers on… I love this idea from Busy Toddler.
He also drew a treasure map…
Where the Disney Characters had to find the treasure… 
Sorted buttons by attributes… 
and sorted by color…. 
Cleaning
I usually do the great toy sort when the kids are gone but… Owen decided he’d like to clean instead of homeschool one of the days this week.
So… we dump ALL the toys together from the entire house, and try to sort out the things that are the same and get rid of toys they are no longer needing…or put them in a tub in the garage to see if they notice first… It is quite a project but does make me feel better in the end.
We also took the time to wash all the windows and power wash our driveway…
Cricut Crafty Projects
We also made some projects with the Cricut which you all know is my relaxing time….
Logan drew a design and we made a shirt for him.
He used the Easy Press to iron it on…
We made some cards for family members…
And a little Easter décor…
These egg people were fun as well…
And Kellen wanted to make a cape…
A lot more things have gone on this week – the roller coaster of raising busy active boys while also trying to get done the online work their teachers have assigned…. but we are doing the BEST we can!
Happy Homeschool!
