Term Two: Week Two ~ Term Two Take Two

Week Two and I nicknamed this week "Term Two Take Two" as we were finally all well, healthy, and ready to get back to normal. However, I also realised that with his appendicitis, then our normal two week school holidays in April, AND another week off for COVID, Munchkin had six weeks off from school which is equivalent to a summer break for us! Therefore, this first week back to school was NOT without some difficulties. But, we persevered, had some serious and stern discussions, and then got on with the routine of school and learning.

I very intentionally and purposefully scheduled an extremely light day for Monday while we found our feet with school again. Therefore the boys enjoyed some "leisure time" early in the morning with their phones and books while I got myself collected and organised everything. Munchkin is a very happy boy in the early mornings if he has either a phone to play games on, or a stack of books to read, or both.

The mornings are getting cooler now that it is May, so the boys curl up with blankets while we read or watch television in the lounge room...

First thing Monday morning we got started on a STACK of reading aloud... you can just see the two piles of books on the left side of the photo. We worked our way through both stacks of books - which took a little over an hour.

While we read a book about the history/origins of rice, they each tried a Rice Krispies treat that was given to us by a friend.

Munchkin working on his math for the day...

And his writing assignment on a different day...

Monster continues to work well, and diligently, each day on his own in our home office.

Wednesday (May the 4th) was "Star Wars Day" so we did a little bit of celebrating. The boys drank blue milk during our morning read aloud session, and then in the afternoon Munchkin helped me whip up a batch of chocolate cupcakes...

He did a brilliant job of mixing both the cupcake batter and the frosting and then got on with the serious job of icing the cupcakes... I think we over whipped the frosting and it split, but they still tasted super delicious.

Our Wednesday night "sweet treat" complete with Star Wars decorations for the occasion.

This series of books looks like it is going to be really fun to read. I started off with rice because it is the food eaten by the most number of people in the world, so that made logical sense for a starting point. The books are full of all sorts of information as well as recipes from around the world. We decided we want to try the chocolate rice pudding recipe... now we just need to wait for the grocery store to get more aborio rice in stock.

Munchkin was my walking buddy a couple of different days this week - including Thursday when we went to pick up our library reserves AND attend the new After School Activities event that will be held every Thursday afternoon. He missed out on craft last week but thoroughly enjoyed playing with Lego this week.

Only two other children attended but we're hoping numbers will improve over time. Meanwhile, Munchkin and another little girl enjoyed building houses.

I took a sneaky photo of Monkey's current drawing for this week. This is a character from one of his new computer games that he is enjoying. He is doing all the drawing free hand (just using a photograph on his phone as reference) and then colouring the picture with his shading pencils.

Munchkin enjoyed spending time with my Saturday afternoon, preparing a special mixed berry upside down cake for morning tea at church for Mother's Day.

Finally, we ended the week with this gorgeous sunset in the evening.

I realised, in looking back at last week's blog posts, that I forgot to include this bookshelf in my isolating organisation blog post. So for those of you who MIGHT be interested, here are the finished photos of that bookshelf.

This is the top shelf... the six books on the left are definitely keepers. The four books on the right, I'll be re-reading in time to decide if I'm keeping them or passing them on to other people/taking to an op shop.

The middle and bottom shelves are an eclectic selection of books I've picked up at discount stores or have been given to me by a variety of people. I will read each of these books over time and make the decision as to whether they meet the criteria for keeping them (I will re-read them) otherwise they will leave my possession and find a home elsewhere.