Eva does math on the patio door!
I don’t know about you, but for our family, this time of year always gets tricky. So many projects and concerts, competitions and meetings! How do you keep things fresh, when all you really want is summer vacation?
I found wonderful inspiration this week from Kelli Anderson, who gave a fabulous TED talk about her work in stretching the traditional and understood boundaries of paper. I just love it. I mean, I really love it. I got so excited that I plotted out an entire children’s book in response. I plan to start writing it terribly soon. You can see the talk at the end of this post; take a few minutes and watch it. Perhaps it will inspire you as it has me!
One of the ways we’re dealing with end of year stress is by taking advantage of the warm outdoor weather. Today we flew and battled kites for almost two hours. It was delightful; all that laughter was better than a jar full of vitamins.
Two patio doors = side by side fabulousness!
Another way we’re keeping things interesting is by moving out of the basement classroom (which stays a bit on the cool side during the changing of the seasons) and coming upstairs where there’s even more sunlight. We do need our whiteboard, however, so I looked around at our… ordinary… patio door (foreshadowing!). Glass works just as well as a whiteboard surface, so I went for it. This turned out to be more brilliant than I had expected. The kids were shocked that they could write on our patio door, and suddenly they both wanted to do more math exercises!
It’s little things like this that get you through. Writing on patio doors, daily dog walks, flying kites. Making sure that every weekend involves friends. I hung up some new swing chairs under the deck this afternoon, and all four of us were ecstatic, already choosing what books we wanted to bring out there and read in the warming weather. Jamie taught his creative writing class on the university lawn today. This time of year is hard, but it’s up to each of us to not give into the end-of-winter rut. We only have this one life, you know?
What a clever idea! Do you mind if I pin this?
Pin away!
[...] from our more traditional school scenario to embrace the busyness of the spring season. We’ve moved upstairs and typically work in the den and dining room, using our patio door as our white board. Stacks of [...]