I was nearing my breaking point, and I knew it. It had been over a week since we went into hiding from this invisible virus that is spreading like wildfire. We left the house very seldom to get things we needed or to exercise. We kindly declined social gathering invites and basically hunkered down.
I was glued to the TV newscasts, in horror at what I was seeing and hearing about all the death around the world, lack of toilet paper and other essentials, and the level of contagiousness this virus had. Something had to give.
I was a ball of nerves, fearful for my little asthmatic, and thinking about all the what-ifs that could possibly go wrong with each and every member of my family facing this with uncertainty about the future.
I couldn't make myself do much, I sat or walked around in a daze so worried about all the things on my mind, but telling myself to have faith, trust, not to worry. But as much as I told myself that it would all be OK, my doubt would creep in, nearly drowning me in the process.
Monday of week two, I headed to the school. We met as teachers, keeping our distance as much as possible and talking about what this whole distance learning think should look like.
I decided I needed to give all this worry a rest. To let it go. To face the fact that my worry, my fear, my irrationalness in all this was transferring to my own daughter, keeping her up at night wondering if she or the people she loved would survive this pandemic. Hearing her words, "I wish I could die and come back when all this is over" hung around my shoulders weighing me down with helplessness. It was a turning point, watching her struggle. I knew I had to muster some normalcy for her...for us both. Be strong for the two of us. Quit watching the news so much, it was quite frankly scaring her as much as it was scaring me.
I determined that I would wake up. Read, play, draw, and have fun just being with my babies. I would take time to slow down, enjoy this moment we've been given, and really take time for my kids.
We drew on sidewalks (and watched how if affected others walking by...the best), baked, did art projects, played board games, and enjoyed each other. I went to bed on time, and slept the best I have in days...with no tossing or turning for hours. I even slept in. And you know what? The Earth went on without me worrying about it. And I woke up happier and refreshed.
I know worry may creep in again, but I'm ready to push it down. I will treasure these days as a gift that I have been given and spend time loving on my family and doing things that I don't normally get to do in the hustle and bustle of real life.
Next week we will begin teaching online and also doing homeschool. That will be a new challenge, but for now everyone is excited about learning from home and this new adventure. So, here's to today's adventures, tomorrow's adventures, and to the future! Cause it's gonna be O.K.
Friday was International Dot Day...and for those of you who have never heard of that and have no idea what all the hype is about, let me introduce you to the book that started it all...You can find it here. It is a great book about growth mindset. It all begins when a little girl cannot think of anything to draw in art class because she doesn't think she is a great artist. Her teacher tells her to draw something, anything...so she draw a dot, a teeny, tiny one. Her teacher asks her to sign her name on the bottom of her paper, so she does. The next day, she walks into the art room and sees her dot framed in a beautiful golden frame. Suddenly, because someone valued her, she begins to see herself as an artist and begins to create more and more art....I'll leave the rest for you to read on your own. You can even find a reading of it here on youtube.
We had a great conversation about the book and how it could apply to us. Then the rest of the day, we engaged in different activities that had something to do with dots.
In science, we explored color and what colors black is made from. Students started by drawing a black dot with a Mr. Sketch marker on a coffee filter. They made a hypothesis about which colors they thought black is made from. They showed this on their recording sheet. Next, they folded the filter into a small triangle shape and dipped it in water for 10 seconds. Then we opened them up to take a look. The students were able to clearly see the colors that are in black. They were so excited! We recorded that on our science experiment sheet. I found this lab on Pinterest, but I cannot find the link.
For P.E. we played a game called, King of the Boppers. I don't have any pictures of this, but basically I had two colors of pool noodles, half of my students were on the green team and the other half were on the blue team. I took each pool noodle and cut them into three equal pieces. Each student got one of the pieces. Then I took another noodle and sliced it into about one inch pieces that were in the shape of a donut (or dot). Every student got one of the long pieces and one of the small pieces that represented the color of their team. The students started in a big field with the small donut-shaped piece in his/her open hand. They had to protect their dot and not let it drop while other students used their long piece, or bopper, to try to whack it out of the other student's hand. If the student dropped their dot, they were out of the game. The last team with players in the game wins! We had so much fun!
During art time, we did this little project that I found on this website and if you scroll down, you can see the video I showed to my class that talked all about texture and how to do this project before we got started. After the video, students had a few minutes to gather some textured items from nature outside. Then inside the classroom, I passed out a few other items that they could use as well. They started by wrapping a piece of yarn around a cardboard circle. Next, they glued down their textured items. After that, they took a piece of tinfoil and placed it on top of their collage. They carefully rubbed their fingertip over the collage, revealing the objects underneath. Then they flipped their circle over and cut around the border of the circle, leaving about an inch of tinfoil. They tucked the foil all around the back of the circle, securing it in place. We will spray pain it later with black and then use some steel wool to burnish it. They are going to look amazing! Can't wait to see their dot shaped texture collages!
And of course, it wouldn't be a special day without snacks, so we decided on cheese dots (cheese balls) and donut dots (donut holes).
We ended up running out of time for all the activities we had planned, since Fridays are always early dismissal days. But I also brought dot games and let them play when they were done with their art project. I had Dominoes, Tic Tac Toe (all the pieces were different colored dots), and Othello.
