Shala K. Howell's Blog, page 13
March 17, 2020
Pandemic Diary 17 March 2020: “This is not helpful information right now, Mommyo”
We are on Day Five of The Howells All Being Home At Once, and things are going about as well as can be expected, to borrow one of my husband’s more useful phrases.
Education Update
My daughter’s teachers continue to post new assignments online. At the beginning of the year, my daughter’s school issued a set of textbooks to every student to keep at home. Assuming new assignments keep appearing (and we continue to be able to access them), we *might* be able to keep our pandemic education plan as simple as make sure that my daughter does the reading and completes her homework every day.
I recognize how fortunate I am to be able to say that. Still, I’d be amazed if it actually worked out that way. Teachers add a lot to the learning process, very little of which I know how to do.
So I’ve decided to create a new permanent page on this blog to track some of the educational resources I discover during this process, just in case you or I end up needing them.
I hope to release the first iteration of that list tomorrow, and will add new options as I find them. I would love it if you would let me know about any useful resources you find that aren’t yet on the list. Many will inevitably be online options, but I would also welcome print/offline curriculum suggestions, since not everyone has access to broadband.
That said, there’s a reason I had planned to send my daughter to school rather than attempting to take on her entire education on my own.
Yesterday’s lessons in homeschooling by the under-equipped
Yesterday I made my first attempt at home-schooling a seventh grader. Reviews were not great, but I learned a few things and hopefully today will be better.
Lesson #1: Working from home is hard for kids too.
I have worked at home for years, but my daughter is not very good at it yet. For the next few days at least, a huge part of my job will be to help my daughter develop the skills and focus to stay on task even when that task involves using a computer equipped with much more interesting things.
[image error]The Thirteen-Year-Old’s friends decorated her locker for her birthday. After they announced school was closing for a month, we made a special trip to pick them up. They’re hanging on her door at home now. We are looking forward to getting back to a world in which this sort of everyday social interaction happens. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Lesson #2: Before we do anything else, my daughter and I are going to have to figure out how to work together.
The first thing I do every day is identify the 3-6 most important things to do that day. Once I have my list, I get started, completing jobs in whatever order makes the most sense. I’ve done this for years, so when it came time to begin my daughter’s first at-home school day, I naturally assumed her school day would begin the same way.
I logged onto the website my daughter’s school uses to communicate those assignments (Schoology), and began reading all of them out loud to her. For the first assignment, this appeared to work great. It was, in fact, new-to-her work. Encouraged, I kept scrolling through Schoology, calling out new assignments as I found them.
As the list grew longer, my daughter’s responses became increasingly nonverbal. Concerned that this meant she couldn’t hear me, I increased the volume of my voice (I know). After about 10 minutes of this, she interrupted me and said: “Mommyo, that information isn’t very helpful right now. I’m still working on that first thing you told me about.”
Oops. I had forgotten that my daughter is used to working on one subject at a time. When it’s time for English, she goes to English class, does the reading, and if time permits in class, works the assignment. When the bell rings for Science, she goes to Science class, does the reading, works the assignment, and so on.
This concept of browsing all of her classes first thing in the morning to identify the entire day’s worth of work at once was completely foreign to her. All I did was create one stressed out middle schooler.
Today’s homeschooling adjustment based on student feedback
From now on, The Thirteen-Year-Old will log onto Schoology first, make a list of all of her assignments, show it to me for double-checking, and then spend the morning working on them, asking me for help as needed. At 11:30 or so, she’ll take a break eat lunch, go outside, check in with her friends, etc, while I verify what if anything, remains to be done. At 1 o’clock, the school day will resume and she’ll complete whatever’s left.
Also, I will try not to dwell on the fact that I lasted a whole 10 minutes as a teacher before my daughter shut it down yesterday.
Crafting Update (aka My Pandemic Project)
Shakespeare may have written King Lear during his plague, but it looks like I’ll have to be content just to catch up on some overdue blankets. The blanket I’ve been promising my sister for the past two years is finally well underway. I’ve completed about 30 inches of it so far, 10 of them since Friday (aka Day One of The Howells All Being Home At Once).
[image error]Meg’s blanket is very grey. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Today’s Dose of Twitter Humor
[image error](Source: @BloodyMargot via Twitter)
How about you? How are you holding up?
Related Links:
Social Distancing: This is not a snow day (Ariadne Labs, a joint venture of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)The best thing everyday Americans can do to fight coronavirus? #StayHome, save lives (USA Today op-ed by sixteen national healthcare leaders)
Pandemic Diary 17 March 2020: "This is not helpful information right now, Mommyo"
We are on Day Five of The Howells All Being Home At Once, and things are going about as well as can be expected, to borrow one of my husband’s more useful phrases.
Education Update
My daughter’s teachers continue to post new assignments online. At the beginning of the year, my daughter’s school issued a set of textbooks to every student to keep at home. Assuming new assignments keep appearing (and we continue to be able to access them), we *might* be able to keep our pandemic education plan as simple as make sure that my daughter does the reading and completes her homework every day.
I recognize how fortunate I am to be able to say that. Still, I’d be amazed if it actually worked out that way. Teachers add a lot to the learning process, very little of which I know how to do.
So I’ve decided to create a new permanent page on this blog to track some of the educational resources I discover during this process, just in case you or I end up needing them.
I hope to release the first iteration of that list tomorrow, and will add new options as I find them. I would love it if you would let me know about any useful resources you find that aren’t yet on the list. Many will inevitably be online options, but I would also welcome print/offline curriculum suggestions, since not everyone has access to broadband.
That said, there’s a reason I had planned to send my daughter to school rather than attempting to take on her entire education on my own.
Yesterday’s lessons in homeschooling by the under-equipped
Yesterday I made my first attempt at home-schooling a seventh grader. Reviews were not great, but I learned a few things and hopefully today will be better.
Lesson #1: Working from home is hard for kids too.
I have worked at home for years, but my daughter is not very good at it yet. For the next few days at least, a huge part of my job will be to help my daughter develop the skills and focus to stay on task even when that task involves using a computer equipped with much more interesting things.
[image error]The Thirteen-Year-Old’s friends decorated her locker for her birthday. After they announced school was closing for a month, we made a special trip to pick them up. They’re hanging on her door at home now. We are looking forward to getting back to a world in which this sort of everyday social interaction happens. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Lesson #2: Before we do anything else, my daughter and I are going to have to figure out how to work together.
The first thing I do every day is identify the 3-6 most important things to do that day. Once I have my list, I get started, completing jobs in whatever order makes the most sense. I’ve done this for years, so when it came time to begin my daughter’s first at-home school day, I naturally assumed her school day would begin the same way.
I logged onto the website my daughter’s school uses to communicate those assignments (Schoology), and began reading all of them out loud to her. For the first assignment, this appeared to work great. It was, in fact, new-to-her work. Encouraged, I kept scrolling through Schoology, calling out new assignments as I found them.
As the list grew longer, my daughter’s responses became increasingly nonverbal. Concerned that this meant she couldn’t hear me, I increased the volume of my voice (I know). After about 10 minutes of this, she interrupted me and said: “Mommyo, that information isn’t very helpful right now. I’m still working on that first thing you told me about.”
Oops. I had forgotten that my daughter is used to working on one subject at a time. When it’s time for English, she goes to English class, does the reading, and if time permits in class, works the assignment. When the bell rings for Science, she goes to Science class, does the reading, works the assignment, and so on.
This concept of browsing all of her classes first thing in the morning to identify the entire day’s worth of work at once was completely foreign to her. All I did was create one stressed out middle schooler.
Today’s homeschooling adjustment based on student feedback
From now on, The Thirteen-Year-Old will log onto Schoology first, make a list of all of her assignments, show it to me for double-checking, and then spend the morning working on them, asking me for help as needed. At 11:30 or so, she’ll take a break eat lunch, go outside, check in with her friends, etc, while I verify what if anything, remains to be done. At 1 o’clock, the school day will resume and she’ll complete whatever’s left.
Also, I will try not to dwell on the fact that I lasted a whole 10 minutes as a teacher before my daughter shut it down yesterday.
Crafting Update (aka My Pandemic Project)
Shakespeare may have written King Lear during his plague, but it looks like I’ll have to be content just to catch up on some overdue blankets. The blanket I’ve been promising my sister for the past two years is finally well underway. I’ve completed about 30 inches of it so far, 10 of them since Friday (aka Day One of The Howells All Being Home At Once).
[image error]Meg’s blanket is very grey. (Photo: Shala Howell)
Today’s Dose of Twitter Humor
[image error](Source: @BloodyMargot via Twitter)
How about you? How are you holding up?
Related Links:
Social Distancing: This is not a snow day (Ariadne Labs, a joint venture of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)The best thing everyday Americans can do to fight coronavirus? #StayHome, save lives (USA Today op-ed by sixteen national healthcare leaders)
March 16, 2020
Pandemic Diary 16 March 2020: Shelter in place order issued for the Bay Area
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that as of midnight tonight, a shelter-in-place order will be in effect for six Bay Area counties, including San Francisco, Santa Clara (where we are), San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda. It’s not a lockdown, we are allowed to leave our homes without explicit permission, but it’s a significant change in our daily lives.
Why the new restrictions?
Schools have been closed since Friday. Over the weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom asked all the bars in the state to close and restaurants to reduce their in-house dining capacity. On Sunday, the CDC asked that gatherings of more than 50 people be stopped nationwide. Nursing homes across the country are restricting visitors.
[image error]Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially and how to flatten the curve (Washington Post, March 14, 2020)
March 14, 2020
My daughter’s school is closed for a month. What now?
Yesterday, my daughter’s school district announced that due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, it would be closing all schools beginning Monday, March 16 and resuming on Monday, April 13 (the end of the previously scheduled spring break). Today, our local public library announced it would close too.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days on the phone with various parents trying to figure out what a reasonable plan for my daughter’s education for the next month might look like. I’ve also spent several hours scanning the web to see what my online options are. (At the end of this post, you’ll find a few of the more interesting options I’ve found.)
Basically, there are as many plans for managing this time as there are parents and educators willing to post about them on the Internet.
As far as I can tell, parents are planning to do everything from maintaining a full load of regularly scheduled course work to simply doing whatever it takes to get their family through the next few weeks without regard to any particular educational goal.
[image error]One of the authors I follow on Twitter, Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey, author of The Gift of Failure), posted this COVID-19 Daily Schedule from Jessica McHale on her Twitter feed this week. In it, Jessica McHale sets aside time for walks, academic blocks, creative blocks, chores, quiet time, and outside play time. I love that McHale offers two bedtimes — an 8 o’clock default bedtime, and a later one at 9 for “all kids who follow the daily schedule and don’t fight.” (Credit: Jessica McHale via Jessica Lahey)
I don’t know what we are going to do yet.
Personally, I’m tempted to use this time to teach my daughter some life skills that she wouldn’t pick up in school — how to cook a few simple dishes so she can make something for herself besides pasta and scrambled eggs, how to think through prepping for unexpected events like pandemics and earthquakes, and how to properly clean a bathroom. This plan has the nice side effect of giving me a helper to compensate for having three times as many people in the house generating four times the mess.
Education-wise, I’m waiting to see what her school offers by way of guidance. If her teachers somehow provide a regular schedule of work, then I will do my best to ensure she does it. If not, then I’ll figure out what matters most to our family during this time, and do that instead.
If I had to guess now, I’d say that in the absence of specific guidance (and assuming life permits), we will most likely end up practicing her math skills, maintaining her fledgling Spanish vocabulary using Duolingo, reading some books, and doing a bit of cooking, some crafting, and a lot of cleaning together. Oh, and spending time most afternoons playing some low-stress but entertaining game like Cantankerous Cats.
Honestly, though, if the best we can do is simply get through the coming month, I’m ok with that. There’s a lot to be said for granting yourself the flexibility to only do what it takes to help you, your loved ones, and your neighbors make it through the coming weeks.
[image error]Shannon Hale speaks truth. (Tweet from Shannon Hale, author of 30+ books, including Princess Academy and Real Friends)
Some online education options for your social isolation enjoyment, for those who want them
Here is a collection of free, home-based education resources I discovered while prowling around online yesterday. Links are provided for information gathering purposes and are not intended as personal endorsements. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list — it’s just a few of the things I’ve found so far. I’d love to hear what you’ve found for use with your own children.
Course/Schedule Planning
In case you, like me, are considering simply grabbing your child’s textbooks, figuring out how many chapters on average they would work through in whatever period of time their school is closed, and working those chapters with them, you might find this post from Progressively Classical on how to create a week’s worth of online classes helpful Progressively Classical, an online K-12 teacher, posted a schedule of fifth grade classes based on the Well-Trained Mind homeschooling curriculum on their Twitter feed this week (@StuckIn48403550)
Directed Reading, Writing, and Creative Projects
Kate Messner, author of more than three dozen kids’ books is compiling/has compiled an online library of resources for kids, families, teachers, and librarians to help support learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. Resources include a kid-friendly comic explaining why things have been closing unexpectedly this spring, first chapter and picture book read-alouds from various authors, and lessons in drawing and writing.Lindsay Currie, author of The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street , has posted a free online writing workshop for 3rd – 7th graders interested in writing their own spooky stories (Spooky 101 Toolbox)Beth Vrabel, author of The Newspaper Club, has suggestions for encouraging your child to document their experiences during the pandemic as if they were a journalist. “What is your family doing to prepare? How is your community coming together? Write. It. Down.”In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks
What about you?
How are you planning to handle this unexpected time with your family?
Related Links:
Four books that share well with middle-schoolers (Caterpickles)Book Review: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (BostonWriters, includes the story of what happened when I tried to homeschool my daughter)Book Review: Pack of Dorks (Caterpickles)
Pandemic Diary 14 March 2020: My daughter’s school is closed for a month. What now?
Yesterday, my daughter’s school district announced that due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, it would be closing all schools beginning Monday, March 16 and resuming on Monday, April 13 (the end of the previously scheduled spring break). Today, our local public library announced it would close too.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days on the phone with various parents trying to figure out what a reasonable plan for my daughter’s education for the next month might look like. I’ve also spent several hours scanning the web to see what my online options are. (At the end of this post, you’ll find a few of the more interesting options I’ve found.)
Basically, there are as many plans for managing this time as there are parents and educators willing to post about them on the Internet.
As far as I can tell, parents are planning to do everything from maintaining a full load of regularly scheduled course work to simply doing whatever it takes to get their family through the next few weeks without regard to any particular educational goal.
[image error]One of the authors I follow on Twitter, Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey, author of The Gift of Failure), posted this COVID-19 Daily Schedule from Jessica McHale on her Twitter feed this week. In it, Jessica McHale sets aside time for walks, academic blocks, creative blocks, chores, quiet time, and outside play time. I love that McHale offers two bedtimes — an 8 o’clock default bedtime, and a later one at 9 for “all kids who follow the daily schedule and don’t fight.” (Credit: Jessica McHale via Jessica Lahey)
I don’t know what we are going to do yet.
Personally, I’m tempted to use this time to teach my daughter some life skills that she wouldn’t pick up in school — how to cook a few simple dishes so she can make something for herself besides pasta and scrambled eggs, how to think through prepping for unexpected events like pandemics and earthquakes, and how to properly clean a bathroom. This plan has the nice side effect of giving me a helper to compensate for having three times as many people in the house generating four times the mess.
Education-wise, I’m waiting to see what her school offers by way of guidance. If her teachers somehow provide a regular schedule of work, then I will do my best to ensure she does it. If not, then I’ll figure out what matters most to our family during this time, and do that instead.
If I had to guess now, I’d say that in the absence of specific guidance (and assuming life permits), we will most likely end up practicing her math skills, maintaining her fledgling Spanish vocabulary using Duolingo, reading some books, and doing a bit of cooking, some crafting, and a lot of cleaning together. Oh, and spending time most afternoons playing some low-stress but entertaining game like Cantankerous Cats.
Honestly, though, if the best we can do is simply get through the coming month, I’m ok with that. There’s a lot to be said for granting yourself the flexibility to only do what it takes to help you, your loved ones, and your neighbors make it through the coming weeks.
[image error]Shannon Hale speaks truth. (Tweet from Shannon Hale, author of 30+ books, including Princess Academy and Real Friends)
Some online education options for your social isolation enjoyment, for those who want them
Here is a collection of free, home-based education resources I discovered while prowling around online yesterday. Links are provided for information gathering purposes and are not intended as personal endorsements. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list — it’s just a few of the things I’ve found so far. I’d love to hear what you’ve found for use with your own children.
Course/Schedule Planning
In case you, like me, are considering simply grabbing your child’s textbooks, figuring out how many chapters on average they would work through in whatever period of time their school is closed, and working those chapters with them, you might find this post from Progressively Classical on how to create a week’s worth of online classes helpful Progressively Classical, an online K-12 teacher, posted a schedule of fifth grade classes based on the Well-Trained Mind homeschooling curriculum on their Twitter feed this week (@StuckIn48403550)
Directed Reading, Writing, and Creative Projects
Kate Messner, author of more than three dozen kids’ books is compiling/has compiled an online library of resources for kids, families, teachers, and librarians to help support learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. Resources include a kid-friendly comic explaining why things have been closing unexpectedly this spring, first chapter and picture book read-alouds from various authors, and lessons in drawing and writing.Lindsay Currie, author of The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street , has posted a free online writing workshop for 3rd – 7th graders interested in writing their own spooky stories (Spooky 101 Toolbox)Beth Vrabel, author of The Newspaper Club, has suggestions for encouraging your child to document their experiences during the pandemic as if they were a journalist. “What is your family doing to prepare? How is your community coming together? Write. It. Down.”In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks
What about you?
How are you planning to handle this unexpected time with your family?
Related Links:
Four books that share well with middle-schoolers (Caterpickles)Book Review: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (BostonWriters, includes the story of what happened when I tried to homeschool my daughter)Book Review: Pack of Dorks (Caterpickles)
Pandemic Diary 14 March 2020: My daughter's school is closed for a month. What now?
Yesterday, my daughter’s school district announced that due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, it would be closing all schools beginning Monday, March 16 and resuming on Monday, April 13 (the end of the previously scheduled spring break). Today, our local public library announced it would close too.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days on the phone with various parents trying to figure out what a reasonable plan for my daughter’s education for the next month might look like. I’ve also spent several hours scanning the web to see what my online options are. (At the end of this post, you’ll find a few of the more interesting options I’ve found.)
Basically, there are as many plans for managing this time as there are parents and educators willing to post about them on the Internet.
As far as I can tell, parents are planning to do everything from maintaining a full load of regularly scheduled course work to simply doing whatever it takes to get their family through the next few weeks without regard to any particular educational goal.
[image error]One of the authors I follow on Twitter, Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey, author of The Gift of Failure), posted this COVID-19 Daily Schedule from Jessica McHale on her Twitter feed this week. In it, Jessica McHale sets aside time for walks, academic blocks, creative blocks, chores, quiet time, and outside play time. I love that McHale offers two bedtimes — an 8 o’clock default bedtime, and a later one at 9 for “all kids who follow the daily schedule and don’t fight.” (Credit: Jessica McHale via Jessica Lahey)
I don’t know what we are going to do yet.
Personally, I’m tempted to use this time to teach my daughter some life skills that she wouldn’t pick up in school — how to cook a few simple dishes so she can make something for herself besides pasta and scrambled eggs, how to think through prepping for unexpected events like pandemics and earthquakes, and how to properly clean a bathroom. This plan has the nice side effect of giving me a helper to compensate for having three times as many people in the house generating four times the mess.
Education-wise, I’m waiting to see what her school offers by way of guidance. If her teachers somehow provide a regular schedule of work, then I will do my best to ensure she does it. If not, then I’ll figure out what matters most to our family during this time, and do that instead.
If I had to guess now, I’d say that in the absence of specific guidance (and assuming life permits), we will most likely end up practicing her math skills, maintaining her fledgling Spanish vocabulary using Duolingo, reading some books, and doing a bit of cooking, some crafting, and a lot of cleaning together. Oh, and spending time most afternoons playing some low-stress but entertaining game like Cantankerous Cats.
Honestly, though, if the best we can do is simply get through the coming month, I’m ok with that. There’s a lot to be said for granting yourself the flexibility to only do what it takes to help you, your loved ones, and your neighbors make it through the coming weeks.
[image error]Shannon Hale speaks truth. (Tweet from Shannon Hale, author of 30+ books, including Princess Academy and Real Friends)
Some online education options for your social isolation enjoyment, for those who want them
Here is a collection of free, home-based education resources I discovered while prowling around online yesterday. Links are provided for information gathering purposes and are not intended as personal endorsements. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list — it’s just a few of the things I’ve found so far. I’d love to hear what you’ve found for use with your own children.
Course/Schedule Planning
In case you, like me, are considering simply grabbing your child’s textbooks, figuring out how many chapters on average they would work through in whatever period of time their school is closed, and working those chapters with them, you might find this post from Progressively Classical on how to create a week’s worth of online classes helpful Progressively Classical, an online K-12 teacher, posted a schedule of fifth grade classes based on the Well-Trained Mind homeschooling curriculum on their Twitter feed this week (@StuckIn48403550)
Directed Reading, Writing, and Creative Projects
Kate Messner, author of more than three dozen kids’ books is compiling/has compiled an online library of resources for kids, families, teachers, and librarians to help support learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. Resources include a kid-friendly comic explaining why things have been closing unexpectedly this spring, first chapter and picture book read-alouds from various authors, and lessons in drawing and writing.Lindsay Currie, author of The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street , has posted a free online writing workshop for 3rd – 7th graders interested in writing their own spooky stories (Spooky 101 Toolbox)Beth Vrabel, author of The Newspaper Club, has suggestions for encouraging your child to document their experiences during the pandemic as if they were a journalist. “What is your family doing to prepare? How is your community coming together? Write. It. Down.”In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks
What about you?
How are you planning to handle this unexpected time with your family?
Related Links:
Four books that share well with middle-schoolers (Caterpickles)Book Review: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (BostonWriters, includes the story of what happened when I tried to homeschool my daughter)Book Review: Pack of Dorks (Caterpickles)
My daughter's school is closed for a month. What now?
Yesterday, my daughter’s school district announced that due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, it would be closing all schools beginning Monday, March 16 and resuming on Monday, April 13 (the end of the previously scheduled spring break). Today, our local public library announced it would close too.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days on the phone with various parents trying to figure out what a reasonable plan for my daughter’s education for the next month might look like. I’ve also spent several hours scanning the web to see what my online options are. (At the end of this post, you’ll find a few of the more interesting options I’ve found.)
Basically, there are as many plans for managing this time as there are parents and educators willing to post about them on the Internet.
As far as I can tell, parents are planning to do everything from maintaining a full load of regularly scheduled course work to simply doing whatever it takes to get their family through the next few weeks without regard to any particular educational goal.
[image error]One of the authors I follow on Twitter, Jessica Lahey (@jesslahey, author of The Gift of Failure), posted this COVID-19 Daily Schedule from Jessica McHale on her Twitter feed this week. In it, Jessica McHale sets aside time for walks, academic blocks, creative blocks, chores, quiet time, and outside play time. I love that McHale offers two bedtimes — an 8 o’clock default bedtime, and a later one at 9 for “all kids who follow the daily schedule and don’t fight.” (Credit: Jessica McHale via Jessica Lahey)
I don’t know what we are going to do yet.
Personally, I’m tempted to use this time to teach my daughter some life skills that she wouldn’t pick up in school — how to cook a few simple dishes so she can make something for herself besides pasta and scrambled eggs, how to think through prepping for unexpected events like pandemics and earthquakes, and how to properly clean a bathroom. This plan has the nice side effect of giving me a helper to compensate for having three times as many people in the house generating four times the mess.
Education-wise, I’m waiting to see what her school offers by way of guidance. If her teachers somehow provide a regular schedule of work, then I will do my best to ensure she does it. If not, then I’ll figure out what matters most to our family during this time, and do that instead.
If I had to guess now, I’d say that in the absence of specific guidance (and assuming life permits), we will most likely end up practicing her math skills, maintaining her fledgling Spanish vocabulary using Duolingo, reading some books, and doing a bit of cooking, some crafting, and a lot of cleaning together. Oh, and spending time most afternoons playing some low-stress but entertaining game like Cantankerous Cats.
Honestly, though, if the best we can do is simply get through the coming month, I’m ok with that. There’s a lot to be said for granting yourself the flexibility to only do what it takes to help you, your loved ones, and your neighbors make it through the coming weeks.
[image error]Shannon Hale speaks truth. (Tweet from Shannon Hale, author of 30+ books, including Princess Academy and Real Friends)
Some online education options for your social isolation enjoyment, for those who want them
Here is a collection of free, home-based education resources I discovered while prowling around online yesterday. Links are provided for information gathering purposes and are not intended as personal endorsements. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list — it’s just a few of the things I’ve found so far. I’d love to hear what you’ve found for use with your own children.
Course/Schedule Planning
In case you, like me, are considering simply grabbing your child’s textbooks, figuring out how many chapters on average they would work through in whatever period of time their school is closed, and working those chapters with them, you might find this post from Progressively Classical on how to create a week’s worth of online classes helpful Progressively Classical, an online K-12 teacher, posted a schedule of fifth grade classes based on the Well-Trained Mind homeschooling curriculum on their Twitter feed this week (@StuckIn48403550)
Directed Reading, Writing, and Creative Projects
Kate Messner, author of more than three dozen kids’ books is compiling/has compiled an online library of resources for kids, families, teachers, and librarians to help support learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. Resources include a kid-friendly comic explaining why things have been closing unexpectedly this spring, first chapter and picture book read-alouds from various authors, and lessons in drawing and writing.Lindsay Currie, author of The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street , has posted a free online writing workshop for 3rd – 7th graders interested in writing their own spooky stories (Spooky 101 Toolbox)Beth Vrabel, author of The Newspaper Club, has suggestions for encouraging your child to document their experiences during the pandemic as if they were a journalist. “What is your family doing to prepare? How is your community coming together? Write. It. Down.”In case you are looking for a more traditional middle school reading guide, Beth Vrabel has also posted a series of study guides for parents and educators to use in conjunction with her middle grade books, including The Newspaper Club and Pack of Dorks
What about you?
How are you planning to handle this unexpected time with your family?
Related Links:
Four books that share well with middle-schoolers (Caterpickles)Book Review: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (BostonWriters, includes the story of what happened when I tried to homeschool my daughter)Book Review: Pack of Dorks (Caterpickles)
March 8, 2020
Caterpickles Central Update
I’m not in any way qualified to write about it, so I won’t be posting about it here. Still, the news around COVID-19 is consuming an awful lot of my mental energy.
We live in Santa Clara County, California — perhaps you’ve heard of it? At the time I wrote this post, the Santa Clara Public Health Department says that there are 37 cases of coronavirus in Santa Clara County. This morning NBC News reported that there are just over 100 coronavirus cases in the entire state of California. So, yeah, I find myself thinking about coronavirus a lot.
On the bright side, we didn’t run out of milk this week for the first time in living memory, I may actually get my taxes done on time this year, I am enjoying the time I’m spending in my new container garden, and I have found myself writing fiction again for the first time in months.
[image error]Y’all, I grew these myself. In a pot. Outside. #PersonalMilestones (Photo: Shala Howell)
What I don’t find myself doing is a lot of blogging
I regret that.
One of the tough things about my particular brain is that I have trouble switching between various types of writing without taking a sizable break in between. In the before-child times, I solved this by working on one project in the morning, taking a long lunch/walk, and having a second writing session in the afternoon in which I worked on something else.
My life no longer allows me to fit multiple writing sessions into a single day. I just get the one.
Every morning I ask myself which type of writing is most important to get done that day
Today, would I rather write fiction or a blog post? Do I need to write for someone else, or can I work on the next Caterpickles book? And so on. Lately the fiction has been winning out.
Writing is one of the best tools I have for coping with what feels like overwhelming anxiety about things over which I have very little control. Right now, I am significantly calmer on days when I spend time writing (and reading) about a world-that-was, rather than the world-that-is. My writing is also more worth reading when I work on the same project multiple days in a row. So every day I can, I’ve been plugging away on my historical fiction novel, and letting this blog and the next Caterpickles book lie fallow.
[image error]You know what else has been lying fallow? My chives. I planted them ten days ago, and there’s still no sign of them. (Photo: Shala Howell, Sign: The Twelve-Year-Old Howell)
Which is why posting has been a little spotty lately
I don’t know how long this trend will continue. However long I need it to, I expect.
Still, I know me. Eventually my curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll wander off to explore some random question like “Did dinosaurs have belly buttons?” or “Were potatoes really ever worth their weight in gold?” That’s just how I’m wired.
And when that happens, you know I’ll write about it here on Caterpickles.
What about you?
What have you been doing lately?
Related Links:
Santa Clara County Public Health Department Novel Coronavirus page The COVID-19 page maintained by the California Department of Public HealthThe CDC’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 page
February 21, 2020
“Why do my biscuits taste like metal?”
A few years ago, my husband began making biscuits on Saturday mornings. Although not all of his efforts have been equally delicious, our family loves starch in nearly all of its forms, so we were happy to eat up the not-so-great batches to make room on the table for the even better batches to come.
With one exception. The one and only batch of biscuits so horrible no amount of bacon could save them tasted like fluffy metal.
By an odd coincidence the Morning of the Metal Biscuits also happened to be the first time my husband had baked his biscuits in a cast iron pan, so of course, I blamed the cookware. My husband was having none of it. “Cast iron is the only proper pan for baking biscuits. I bet it was the baking powder.”
Reader, it was the baking powder, but not in the way you think
Using too much baking powder can make your biscuits taste bitter. The web is full of horror stories about cooks learning this the hard way.
But bitter isn’t quite the same as metallic. And my husband hadn’t changed his normal recipe. He’d used the same amount of baking powder as he always did.
So why did the recipe that had worked so well the week before fail on the Morning of the Metal Biscuits?
It turns out the type of baking powder you use matters a lot. In the intervening week, I had happened to notice that we were running low on baking powder. Knowing this to be a key biscuit ingredient, I tossed a can of Clabber Girl baking powder in the cart along with some fresh buttermilk in anticipation of a delicious Saturday morning.
[image error]The weird looking ones are the yummiest. At least, that’s what I tell The Twelve-Year-Old. (Photo: Shala Howell)
And that’s how I learned that not all baking powders are created equal
I grew up using Clabber Girl in my chocolate chip cookies and quick breads, and have never been disappointed in the results. But that morning I learned the hard way that what works for cookies and sweet breads doesn’t always work for buttermilk biscuits.
The problem isn’t the brand, it’s the aluminum. The baking powder my husband buys, Rumford, is aluminum free. Clabber Girl, sadly, is not. Honestly, I’d always written this off as just one of the ways we were different. A Heinz vs. Hunt’s ketchup sort of thing. He always bought the Rumford in the red can, I always bought the Clabber Girl in the white. Whatever. It’s just baking powder.
On that Saturday morning, I, and my husband, fervently wished that I had taken a moment to think through the implications of his baking powder preferences a bit more carefully. Although he cooks most of our dinners, my husband doesn’t actually do much baking. He pretty much only makes biscuits, which don’t have a bunch of chocolate chips in them to mask the metallic flavor, so the aluminum content really matters. I don’t know how much aluminum gets used to make baking powder, but however much it is, it’s clearly enough to take over the entire biscuit.
Lesson learned.
In the meantime, I’m tucking this recipe for homemade baking powder into my web pocket for the next time we run out of the aluminum-free stuff.
Bonus: When it comes to making biscuits, does every ingredient really matter?
In the course of researching this post, I stumbled across the Science of Biscuits on Instructables. In this glorious post, Solobo systematically changes various aspects of biscuit-making to determine whether or not they actually affect biscuit flavor. His experiments to determine the optimal amount of baking powder were naturally the ones I read first. But the rest of the post is pretty interesting too, and shattered more than one of my biscuit-making expectations.
Apparently, not only is it possible to churn out a perfectly edible biscuit using only water, you can also make one using margarine. I am not even going to address the notion that you can swap in cream cheese for the fat, because this paragraph is challenging enough for my husband to countenance already.
Victory Garden Update
I have commandeered my daughter’s little red wagon. I’m planting the first batch of flowers, herbs, and vegetables today.
[image error]Photo: Shala Howell
Related Links:
Recipe for homemade baking powder (Epicurious)The Science of Biscuits (Instructables)Why do my muffins taste metallic? (Smitten Kitchen)Tips for better biscuits (King Arthur Flour, biscuit baker beware — this author likes her biscuits flaky, not fluffy)What’s making my muffins and biscuits taste bitter? (kitchn)You are making your biscuits wrong (New York Times Magazine, may be behind a paywall depending on how many other articles you’ve read there this month)
"Why do my biscuits taste like metal?"
A few years ago, my husband began making biscuits on Saturday mornings. Although not all of his efforts have been equally delicious, our family loves starch in nearly all of its forms, so we were happy to eat up the not-so-great batches to make room on the table for the even better batches to come.
With one exception. The one and only batch of biscuits so horrible no amount of bacon could save them tasted like fluffy metal.
By an odd coincidence the Morning of the Metal Biscuits also happened to be the first time my husband had baked his biscuits in a cast iron pan, so of course, I blamed the cookware. My husband was having none of it. “Cast iron is the only proper pan for baking biscuits. I bet it was the baking powder.”
Reader, it was the baking powder, but not in the way you think
Using too much baking powder can make your biscuits taste bitter. The web is full of horror stories about cooks learning this the hard way.
But bitter isn’t quite the same as metallic. And my husband hadn’t changed his normal recipe. He’d used the same amount of baking powder as he always did.
So why did the recipe that had worked so well the week before fail on the Morning of the Metal Biscuits?
It turns out the type of baking powder you use matters a lot. In the intervening week, I had happened to notice that we were running low on baking powder. Knowing this to be a key biscuit ingredient, I tossed a can of Clabber Girl baking powder in the cart along with some fresh buttermilk in anticipation of a delicious Saturday morning.
[image error]The weird looking ones are the yummiest. At least, that’s what I tell The Twelve-Year-Old. (Photo: Shala Howell)
And that’s how I learned that not all baking powders are created equal
I grew up using Clabber Girl in my chocolate chip cookies and quick breads, and have never been disappointed in the results. But that morning I learned the hard way that what works for cookies and sweet breads doesn’t always work for buttermilk biscuits.
The problem isn’t the brand, it’s the aluminum. The baking powder my husband buys, Rumford, is aluminum free. Clabber Girl, sadly, is not. Honestly, I’d always written this off as just one of the ways we were different. A Heinz vs. Hunt’s ketchup sort of thing. He always bought the Rumford in the red can, I always bought the Clabber Girl in the white. Whatever. It’s just baking powder.
On that Saturday morning, I, and my husband, fervently wished that I had taken a moment to think through the implications of his baking powder preferences a bit more carefully. Although he cooks most of our dinners, my husband doesn’t actually do much baking. He pretty much only makes biscuits, which don’t have a bunch of chocolate chips in them to mask the metallic flavor, so the aluminum content really matters. I don’t know how much aluminum gets used to make baking powder, but however much it is, it’s clearly enough to take over the entire biscuit.
Lesson learned.
In the meantime, I’m tucking this recipe for homemade baking powder into my web pocket for the next time we run out of the aluminum-free stuff.
Bonus: When it comes to making biscuits, does every ingredient really matter?
In the course of researching this post, I stumbled across the Science of Biscuits on Instructables. In this glorious post, Solobo systematically changes various aspects of biscuit-making to determine whether or not they actually affect biscuit flavor. His experiments to determine the optimal amount of baking powder were naturally the ones I read first. But the rest of the post is pretty interesting too, and shattered more than one of my biscuit-making expectations.
Apparently, not only is it possible to churn out a perfectly edible biscuit using only water, you can also make one using margarine. I am not even going to address the notion that you can swap in cream cheese for the fat, because this paragraph is challenging enough for my husband to countenance already.
Victory Garden Update
I have commandeered my daughter’s little red wagon. I’m planting the first batch of flowers, herbs, and vegetables today.
[image error]Photo: Shala Howell
Related Links:
Recipe for homemade baking powder (Epicurious)The Science of Biscuits (Instructables)Why do my muffins taste metallic? (Smitten Kitchen)Tips for better biscuits (King Arthur Flour, biscuit baker beware — this author likes her biscuits flaky, not fluffy)What’s making my muffins and biscuits taste bitter? (kitchn)You are making your biscuits wrong (New York Times Magazine, may be behind a paywall depending on how many other articles you’ve read there this month)
