We made it to Saturday!

Congrats, families! You made it through your first week of distance learning! I know there are many things we could all perfect and improve upon, but instead of being critical, let's all take a moment to be proud of what we DID accomplish. 

My biggest celebration of the week is seeing kids smiling through the photos you've sent me, and hearing about what kids are learning and doing outside of school. This is a truly unique time in their lives, and yours, and I think we can appreciate the small moments of individual successes and memories you are making with your children.

My biggest goal is for your children to take time to explore their creative side while they are home. In recent conversations with kids at school, I have learned that not all of them know how to use their imagination. I was sharing a story with a student about how when my brother and I were kids, we would take out all of our toys and stuffed animals and put them on the staircase, which we would pretend was a giant ship we were sailing around the world. The game was called "King Kong" because our King Kong doll was the ship's captain. We would play for hours until we would eventually get in a fight (like siblings do) and have to clean it up and take a break from each other. A student asked me, "You made that up yourselves?" I said, "Yeah! We made up all kinds of weird imaginative games for indoors and outdoors." The student responded, "I don't know how to do that."  It broke my heart. I truly believe the imagination is a muscle we need to exercise constantly or it loses its tone and becomes inflexible. Here is a cool blog I found which has some suggestions for imagination games. https://www.iseeme.com/blog/blog/2016/09/26/7-imagination-activities-for-kids/  So while you're home, encourage your kiddos to flex those imaginations. It doesn't mean zero screen time and zero structured time, but it's okay to let them be bored and figure it out.

In other non-school news, Mrs. Towle put me onto a couple local farmers' markets in the area.  I was able to get some really great looking carrots today without having to go into a store.  If you need some fresh produce, see what's going on in Bath with the farmers' markets. Some of them, such as I believe Goranson, will accept EBT cards. Many of the local farms have Facebook pages, so you can follow them on there for more info. 

Have a happy and healthy weekend.