APRIL - Home Learning / Working from Home / Riding Bikes

4/1

Lots of Home Learning today. We are on a roll. I really enjoy Reed’s reading to me. He is coming right along in that department. The older kids are very self-directed which is also a joy to see. I had work emails and meetings today to schedule around, including a 125-member all-staff meeting for Shorecrest. It was fun to see everyone! Our district Race & Equity Team is currently crafting a lens with which home learning materials can be evaluated with equity in mind. We snuck in an 8-mile bike ride in the late afternoon, when it finally got sunny. We took advantage of the new bike carrier and started at Matthew’s Beach Park, then rode south to the U Village and the UW arboretum and back. The kids and I had a sense of accomplishment from seeing new sights and of course the exercise, fresh air, and sunshine was a plus. Edison got to do a Zoom meet up with his buddies tonight which was a fun social hour.

And it wouldn’t be April Fool’s Day without a couple jokes - here is a hilarious checklist the kids made for today. 

4/2

Home Learning continues. This was the first day Reed’s motivation started to waiver. We got back on track after incorporating some hand’s on learning challenges such as “build a boat out of aluminum foil that can support 10 pennies for 10 seconds.” His boat ended up holding them for over a minute! Reed and Charlotte also are into “how to draw” videos on YouTube right now and are drawing some really cool things. We packed our work into the morning and were then able to head out on a longer ride after lunch. The kids have decided they want to try to eventually work up to doing the whole Lake Washington Loop bike trail (48 miles). So for now, we are biting off smaller segments with the idea that we’ll get it all done like this first. Today we started at the UW Arboretum, rode past the UW sports fields and stadiums, over the Montlake Cut and 520, through the Washington Park Arboretum and down to Madrona Park on Lake Washington. It was about 10 miles there-and-back, making it our longest ride so far. The kids did great even on the numerous hilly sections. I had to take a nap afterwards! I really enjoyed showing them parts of my alma mater!