Photos from Phones - March 2022 Round Up

As I mentioned on the "out there" post for March, I can barely remember the happenings of March, seeing as they happened three months ago. So this will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you, going back in time to see what we were up to back then.

3.1.22
(I don't know why I took a screenshot of
today's wordle, but here it is. Remember when
the word was rupee? I don't!)

3.2.22
(I never thought I’d be a homeschooler in the first place. And in the second place, I never thought I’d be a homeschooler reading Shakespeare with my elementary kids. But we started this when there was a small chance we’d be going to the ballet Romeo and Juliet last month and I wanted Cal to know the story behind what we’d be watching. When that outing got cancelled, we kept up the reading anyway, and we all actually really enjoyed it, even if it’s a tragedy (that should have been avoided if you ask me!). We’ve paired our readings here with a few scenes of the ballet on YouTube (because I love the Prokofiev music and we’ve been learning about him this winter) and maybe we’ll find a play version we could watch at least part of. Turns out kids can learn Shakespeare!)

3.2.22
(This is a Gregg read. He really liked it (go figure, given the subject matter). She has also written another called Down River: Into the Future of Water in the West that he liked, too.)

3.2.22
(When you get home from the library and realize your receipt is almost as long as your son. 🤓🤣)

3.4.22
(I guess I took the picture this day, but didn't actually finish reading till the 8th, but whatever.
Gary Schmidt does it again. He is so good! I read and loved The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now and Lizzy Bright and the Buckminster Boy a couple years ago, so when I heard he had a new book, I knew I wanted to read it. I didn’t remember a lot of those other books, and while he ties things from his previous books into this one, you don’t have to really remember much and still be okay. And I loved this one too! Even though it was sad and scary and unfair at times, it was funny and hopeful and clever and beautiful overall. Just so good!)

3.5.22
(While Gregg and his mom were at Uncle Eric's funeral, and Cal and I were
at a musical with my parents, Sam got to hang out with Grandpa B. They picked up
trash and tumbleweeds, ate at burger bar, and got to ride in the trailer behind the lawn
mower. Party time!)

3.5.22

3.5.22

3.5.22

3.5.22

3.5.22
(My parents invited the girl cousins and moms
to watch Little Mermaid at our cousin Savanna's
high school performance. It was SO fun to 
sing along to all the songs and say all the lines
(that were the same as the movie, there were a few changes
for the musical) since Heather and I were
obsessed with that show when we were little.)

3.5.22
(the girls even got a pic with Ariel and Prince Eric.
Everyone did a wonderful job in this production.
We had a great time!)

3.5.22
(meanwhile, in Pleasant Grove, here are Ryan and Gregg checking
out the VWs in the church parking lot, paying tribute to Uncle Eric
who loved to fix them up)

3.5.22
(I made Gregg watch this with me - the olympics got me
in the mood. It was a favorite at sleepovers as a teenager,
but it was just mostly meh for me this time.)

3.7.22
(March is Women’s History Month, so like we did in February for Black History Month, we’re working our way through this giant stack of picture book biographies, just one or two a day during morning time. So many cool people to learn about!)
(spoiler alert: we didn't make it though all of these, but that's okay!)

3.7.22
(Two heat vents; two heat vent readers.)

3.8.22
(Had some fun with concrete poetry today. These are always so clever and mind-bending. I love them!)

3.8.22
(Not concrete poetry, but one of the books from our women’s history pile I snagged to read this morning since it’s our poetry day and she’s a poet. I discovered I really like her stuff! And this bio-poetry collection combo was really great to sit with for a while together.)

3.8.22
(here comes the snow!)

3.8.22
(oh look, I took another pic of the book after I finished it. ha)

3.8.22
(that's snow joke!)

3.10.22
(Here’s another book rec I’ve started this week and am really enjoying. It’s just what it says on the cover: short “essays on a human-centered plant”, which include topics such as Canada geese, Diet Dr Pepper, velociraptors, Teddy bears, etc. and then, at the end of each chapter/essay he gives the thing a star rating, as if he’s reviewing it on amazon or something. Hence Anthropocene (which means the era in which we humans are living) Reviewed. Quite entertaining, and I’m only 60 pages in. :)
3.16.22
(Just finished and I really enjoyed it! I learned a lot, I related to a lot. I give it four and a half stars. ;))

3.10.22
(just an example of the random things he thinks of to discuss)

3.10.22
(table of contents, part 2)

3.10.22
(and even the tiny print on the copywrite page has a funny review!)

3.10.22
(eating popcorn for Grandpa T)

3.12.22
(all that snow mixed with sun equals melting and puddles
and Sam wanted to test out his monster trucks at the end of
the driveway.)

3.12.22

3.12.22
(you can't see them, but this is the first v of geese we spotted this spring)

3.14.22
(what color would you paint the wind? we read this book
and then decided to do it ourselves)

3.16.22
(The kids and I have been reading this one the past month or so as part of a brave writer dart curriculum. We all loved this semi-autobiographical story (and fun tiny illustrations) of Pacy/Grace living her life, making friends, trying to figure out who she is as an Asian American girl in elementary school. Grace Lin is simply marvelous! But I especially loved the anecdotes of her parents and grandparents included as part of the story (plus the bonus ones with photos found at the end of the book!). Such a clever idea that inspired us to “interview” some great grandmas via letter, as well as start compiling some of our own memories as anecdotes. This copy also had a fun interview with her best friend (Melody in the book) who is also Grace’s editor! So much fun bonus content in this one. We adored it all!)

3.16.22
(lego creation (made and photographed) by Sam (I think))

3.16.22

3.16.22
(gotta get all the angles)

3.16.22

3.16.22

3.16.22
(literally, all the angles!)

3.22.22
(Lego Yosemite - all her idea, but a nice little
"homework" project!)

3.23.22
(Sam was inspired to make one, too)

3.24.22
(we had an inspection for our lease renewal and figured it
probably would be a good idea to take down our homeschool
wall. But I wanted a pic of it before we stuffed everything into
folders for safe keeping.)

3.24.22
(again, I have no idea why I snapped a screenshot of this wordle
this day, but here's a little time capsule snippet)

3.25.22
(resuming our Friday fieldtrips - this time we
stopped at the Pleasant Valley Branch of the library)

3.26.22
(such an odd german pancake puff this morning.
plus: berries!)

3.26.22
(we had our first hotdog roast of the season with Heather's 
fam after our bike ride in Ogden. Yum!)

3.28.22
(I read this one. My friend recommended it to me.
It was okay. I didn't even write up a blurb
about it on my google photos book love album, so I don't know
why I took a pic.  It felt very familiar somehow, and predictable.
But I guess it's super popular. So now I know.)

3.29.22
(heather sent me the most disturbing photo
of her sourdough starter and it seriously gave me
the heebie jeebies. . . still does when I think about it.
This is not it. This is my sourdough starter, which might
look disturbing to you, but this is what it usually looks like
because I kind of neglect it for weeks to months at a time.
so it gets hungry and mad. but I just scrape off that top layer and
stir it up and feed it and it's fine again. Especially since I only ever
use the discard these days for my sourdough english muffins
and peasant bread baking.)

3.29.22
(We’ve been taking Paddle-to-the-Sea nice and slow, just a couple pages a day over this month, so we could work on some mapping skills along the way. I found the printouts online and they worked perfectly to break up the labeling and coloring into easy-to-accomplish bites. This book tells the story of a little carved Indian in a canoe and his journey from Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior, through all the Great Lakes and into the Atlantic Ocean. It was especially fun since we visited every lake last fall. (But the story is still fun, educational and entertaining, even without the mapwork and “field trip”.))

3.29.22
(Today we enjoyed a fun poetry tea time slash writers on writing workshop learning how to write equation poems with Laura Purdie Salas, a la the poems she published in this book. (It’s so clever and also has some extra springy facts on each page along with the poems.) Here are some equations Sam came up with. (I scribed for him, and he didn’t want to do the final revision steps to “add dazzle”, but I think they’re pretty fun anyway.))

3.29.22
(Here’s Cal’s sheet of equation poems that she (we) worked on further with the polishing and “dazzling”. (She had a huge list of rough draft equations that were all really fun. She loves this kind of thing!))

3.29.22
(This was so great! It’s a graphic memoir, telling the story of a high school teacher and his experience writing this book about his school’s basketball team’s run for the state championship. You get a lot of backstory of the players and coaches plus lots of general basketball history (and history history, actually). Plus there are some great, dramatic, intense game sequences that keep you at the edge of your seat. Pretty fun! And petty impressive coming from a self-proclaimed sports hater. :) I’ve had this on my list for a long time and felt like March madness was a good time to finally read it. It only took me a couple hours even though it’s over 400 pages, which I love about graphic novels, but then I always feel bad that I blow through them so fast when they clearly take years to make. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

3.30.22
(Two kids ... one (LEGO - they’re obsessed!) book ... one chair. 🤣)

3.30.22
(Grandpa helpers!)

3.30.22
(he hired them to help fill in some bare spots in his yard with
fresh topsoil so he can reseed those spots)

3.31.22
(we celebrated national crayon day by breaking down
some of our old and broken crayons and melting them into
fresh, new cylinder crayons. and yes, this did leave a waxy
residue that was nearly impossible to remove, until I baked a
batch of muffins in the pan anyway, which got the last of
that wax right off!)

3.31.22
(you can tell the difference between brands quite clearly!)

3.31.22
(cooling time!)

3.31.22
(we of course read a bunch of books with crayons as the
subject, and colored with a brand new box of crayons, and
watched youtube videos on how they are made.)

3.31.22
(crayon history and creative writing worksheets, even.
we made this a whole thing!)

3.31.22
(here's how they look when they're all finished.)

Every other round up here (whew!):

2022: Feb | Jan

2021: Dec | Nov | Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2020: Dec | Nov | Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar Quar + Mar | Feb | Jan
2019: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2018: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2017: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2016: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2015: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2014: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan

2013: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June