A new type of school and an adjusted birthday party

A week ago, we received the letters from the kids' school detailing what school will look like for the last seven weeks of the semester (May 18 - July 3).  Divided classes.  School every other day for each class half.  Staggered start and end times between 7:45 and 12:15.  No physical interaction or sharing of supplies with classmates or teachers.  No music.  No outings.  No gym class.  No handywork class.  The letters were a bit disturbing.  But the entire situation remains disturbing.

As I attempted last week to begin preparing the kids for this type of school, Nathanael finally began to realize that his ''postponed'' birthday party for 12-15 friends with a Pokemon theme is not realistically happening this year.  It was a sad realization, but he used his awesome creativity to begin to brainstorm other ideas.  He came up with an incredible plan.

Our family practices social distancing.  For the first month, we were extremely stringent.  For the last month, we have remained stringent with the exception of a few kids.  We have a small circle of kids with whom we allow our kids to play as 6-7 and 9-10 year olds need.  Mostly neighborhood kids.  So Nathanael decided to have two of these boys (two classmates and neighbors who are also in his Boy Scout troop) over for an overnight party.  What a fun adventure it was!

The boys helped Gregory put the tent up in the backyard.  The plan was to sleep in it, but the full moon and the cold night air caused them to move in to our living room around midnight. ;)

In addition to grilling burgers and wurstl for dinner, the evening included a film projected on the wall.

And Gregory took them on a bike ride in the dark!  So cool!

Both Friday afternoon and all day Saturday were spent mostly in nature, riding bikes together, playing at the newly reopened playground, and then of course playing in our local stream.

 

 

 

 

Nathanael's breakfast request was Kaiserschmarrn with applesauce (that is not the recipe I use, but it is similar and in English), one of our family favorites, and we ordered from our local pizza place for lunch.  What fun!   It took a few days to recover from the lost sleep and extra excitement, but it was totally worth it to celebrate this ten year old with a couple friends and some really really special activities!