6 Months of Social Distancing

Dear Kiddos, 

Today marks exactly 6 months since we've been social distancing. 😲<--6ft -->🙀<--6ft-->😷. To tell you the truth, I  thought that we would maybe be in this situation for 2-3 months, and now, half a year later, the end is still not in sight. But we are still trucking along, making memories, learning new things, and staying sane. 

Hannah, you've been pretty obsessed with bao-zi, so we've been making them fairly often. I truthfully don't know of another 6 year old who can make a bao-zi as good as you can. 

Hannah, you also learned to tell time on the hour and on the half-hour this week. 

Nathan, you are currently working on word problems and order of operations (with parenthesis) for adding and subtracting. Most of the 2 digit math that you are doing is completed mentally. You are super fast at doing computations!

In science, we are continuing our physical science unit with forms of energy. This week, we focused on light. We identified sources of light, talked about how light travels and why we see color. I reminded you guys about the experiment that we did this summer that showed how when light is absorbed, it can turn into heat, which leads up to our next unit: heat. 

We just started the planning phases of making a solar cooker, so we can make refinements after we finish the lesson over heat. Currently, Hannah, you have a 20"x 20" sized solar cooker and Nathan, you have decided to make yours 11" x 11". I'm excited to see how they come along. We are using a cast-iron pot, cardboard boxes, aluminum foil and glass (not sure where I'm going to find that, but that's the plan for now.)

It's been super rainy this week, so we've been able to see a lot of little critters come out from hiding. 

Even these critters got out for long walks when the rain let up. 

Hailey, you are learning on recognizing numbers and shapes. So while Nathan and Hannah were working on their school work one day, we played a very modified version of sequence. 

In art, we made 3-D pop up cards, just in time for our neighbor's birthday. 

Yesterday we ventured out as far as we've gone in over 6 months: San Antonio. On a whim, I decided to purchase season passes to Sea World. I figured with COVID transmission being low in well ventilated areas and Sea World, being outdoors, at limited capacity, would be a good place to visit during a pandemic. 

We started our day at Aquatica, the water park. We arrived right at opening and it was nice, there were no lines for anything and we were able to stay socially distant from others. The first ride we went on was Stingray falls, even Hailey went on it. You didn't cry, but you definitely let us know that you did not want to ride the red slide again. Nathan, you went on a few water slides with Daddy and us girls (Hannah was just a hair too short to ride some of the slides) explored the lazy river and wave pool.

It was sooooo refreshing to be able to be in an environment that felt like "normal." 

Because face masks were not required at most of the places (Except the entrance and at the food court) we started to not feel as safe around lunch time, when the crowds got thicker. We quickly ate lunch and left to the main park where face masks were mandatory everywhere. 

We walked around to get a feel for the layout and then went to go see the sea-lion show because Hailey, you love sea lions and seals. You loved every moment of the show. 

We will be self-quarantining for the next 2 weeks. There were too many close-call incidents to be able to say that we are COVID-free. We have a small group of friends that we see on a regular basis and so we want to keep the circle safe. It's better to be safe than sorry. Am I glad that we got out? Absolutely. After being cooped up for 6 months, being able to see you guys enjoy new experiences was priceless. 

Until next week, 

Love, 

Mommy