SD Week 5 - Jack Finishes His Report on Italy

Back in January, Jack chose Italy for his country report.  This is a 3-5 page research paper with title page, table of contents, handrawn map and flag, national anthem, and bibliography.  Originally, it also included a Country Fair with tri-fold board display, but Jack's teacher did not require the kids to make the boards since the school closure also meant the Country Fair was canceled.

For the purposes of the report and (lack of) fair, the school closure was a good thing for Jack.  The due date was pushed back 2 weeks, and he and I were able to spend a lot more time one-on-one, going through his paper and making sure he'd met the requirements.  He needed to include one non-internet and non-book source, so one morning a few weeks ago we did a video chat with a friend of mine who is Italian so he could get her perspective on all things Italy.  Since he was missing out on his country fair, I tried to give him a bit more of an immersive experience at home, so we had a fairly  authentic Italian meal with homemade pasta aglio e olio served as the first course and insalata as the second course.  Later in the week, Jack and Luke helped me make tiramisu (a non-alcoholic, non-coffe version) from scratch and we pretended we were Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.  We also tried our own version of Ruzzolone the day after Easter, as is customary.  Jack gave a very informal presentation, telling us about what he'd learned in his research.  And we watched Disney's Pinocchio.

Though the Italy-study portion of the week was great, by the time Friday midmorning came around, I was very much done with homeschool.  Thank goodness the weekend was just a few hours away.  It didn't help that we got news this week that schools will remain in "soft closure" mode until the end of the school year - news we were expecting, but still hoping we wouldn't get.  I think that for the first time ever, I'm more excited about summer break than the kids.

Cat's school sent out an email saying, "Because we are concerned about the already appearing mental and emotional burn-out in students, parents, and teachers..." they are reducing the load of finals and ending school early.  Cat will have just 3 open-book finals the second week of May, and then she'll be finished.

In other news, Cat decided to give up meat for the next 1-2 months, at which point she'll evaluate how she feels and determine if she'd like to continue.  It's motivating the rest of us to eat less meat, too, which is great.  The initial seed was planted when Cat showed us this video, but we all have other reasons for cutting back too.

And finally, a big announcement.  Eliza has decided that when she grows up she's going to have a restaurant called "Sunday Breakfast," at which yummy breakfast foods are served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.  This is of course due to Ben's weekly tradition of making the kids a big breakfast on Sunday mornings when I'm at choir.  And also Eliza's love of breakfast food.

The boys loved making pasta!  It was a process, for sure, but not impossible.
The kids have decided it's the only way to eat pasta, so I might have shot myself in the foot with this.

This was definitely the easiest, and also one of the yummiest, pasta recipes I've ever made.
Try it out here.

Since we didn't have any 9-lb. wheels of pecorino cheese sitting around for our Ruzzolone,
we used the wheels off of the outgrown bike in the garage.  (See a video of an actual cheese-roll here.)

This was part of Eliza's breakfast one morning.

Dole Whip attempt #2: A success!  (It helped that Disney recently
released their official Dole Whip recipe.)  We had an encore Disney@Home
night with Hawaiian Haystacks - which I'm pretty sure
aren't at all Hawaiian - Dole Whips, and Moana.

Eliza was bored one day and gave herself a makeover, complete with blue hair chalk.
Then she proceeded to take approximately 3,000 selfies on my phone.  The first batch were almost
entirely of the serious/dramatic variety, so I encouraged her to go take some happy ones.

Jack had fun with his longer hair and took exactly 3 individual selfies

and one with me.

Why is this such a regular thing at bedtime?

Finalizing the report.

Oh, how she misses gymnastics and hates that we don't have a trampoline to practice on.

This is what bike rides look like these days.

The Michelangelo Challenge: spend 10 minutes drawing upside down.

The girls' creation -

The boys' creation -

Tiramisu!  So yummy!  (But not Jack's favorite, unfortunately.)

Along with his country report, Jack also completed this little writing assignment to turn in this week.

This sweet little note, along with a bookmark I'll have to take a picture of later,
were included in Jack's packet when we picked up the last batch of schoolwork
on Thursday.  Jack also got some candy, Eliza got candy and her envelope was
decorated with stickers, and Luke got some pictures of his class.  I appreciate that
the teachers are doing things to help the kids feel special and connected.

We spent a couple of hours doing yardwork on Saturday.
Cat and I were weeding flowerbeds the whole time.

The younger kids helped Ben pick up the limbs he'd trimmed,
then stomped them down in the bed of the truck.

We got a badminton set and tried it out Saturday night.
We aren't signing up for any family tournaments yet,
but it was really fun!