Surviving Snowstorm

How are you surviving the snowstorm with your kids?

Ours are enjoying playtime, doing some homework, and playing / shoveling snow.

For homework, we have a bunch of ideas:

  • Code.org - Apparently my daughter's in kindergarten is starting with this stage, https://studio.code.org/s/courseb/stage/4/puzzle/2, While my son in 3rd grade is on the Minecraft part.
  • Jump Math - We read about this in the NY Times and have been fans of it since. And this past year, friends told us about these workbooks. What's nice about it is it breaks down math into little digestible pieces, so our kids can often work on it without having to ask us about it. Perfect! ;-)
  • Journaling - On our trips we make our kids write about their experience. With my son we talk about the importance of 5 Ws, or writing about his viewpoint and feelings. With my daughter I'd ask her to draw and write about her experience.
  • Typing - the school has a typing game login. If you can't find it, like I often have trouble, just try typing.com. Our kids like it. :)

After doing some work, it's playtime. We do some timed screentime with

  • Nature & science - e.g. Planet Earth or Blue Planet.
  • Kids cartoons from Netflix like Octonauts, Oddbods

And we also have a lot of boardgames to play

  • Monopoly - my husband and now son are master at this. But I complained the game takes forever and gets boring after some time. Apparently it was created to teach people the evils of capitalism: how landlords always win. ;-) We now play the timed version, the winner owns the most money and property at the end of the hour.
  • Ticket to Ride - I researched better games and this came up. The nice thing is it's at most an hour, and everyone's engaged throughout and much less dependent on luck.

More fun for kids of course is playing out in the snow and shoveling. ;-)

And best of all? Playdates of course! Good to know other families near you. :)