Homeschooling strengths, I got this - or not

Curly started making these in the family room,
 but they needed to be knocked down to
accommodate movie nights,
so I realized that she
 has taken to tucking them
 into the corner of her room.

Never thought of myself as much of a homeschooling type - feared knew I would become way too frustrated and turn my children off of learning.  What I have discovered is that they do just fine learning at home - some of this I am involved in and some of it, not so much.  For example:

architecture - Curly has been actively building her houses out of magnet tiles.  If you linger too long nearby, she will subject you to offer you a tour.

cooking - All of the kids meals were edible, unless you count Lad's meal of zucchini boat pizzas.  It was a tough time to learn that Reg does NOT like zucchini.  He gagged and choked as we told him to quit being such a wussy and just eat it.  Have I mentioned our family has a prerequisite of thick skin?  It would have been smart if he had left the pizza fixings on the vegetable (tired of typing and misspelling the z word), but sadly he scooped the pizza parts off and then gagged on the withered up z.  Coach took a video of him gagging which has provided him with much amusement.  This is good because as I mentioned we don't have Netflix and cannot watch stuff about that weird tiger guy.  

music - Still working on Ed to get him to learn ONE godforsaken Irish tune on the piano.  He claims he was no good at the piano, but folks - he took lessons for years and he was decent.  Really.  I will continue to withhold food work on him with my endless charm.  The other musicians include played a tune, well sort of:  Lad - Bodhran,  (Irish drum), Tank - wooden flute, Mini and Curly - fiddle, and Reggie - concertina (looks like a small squeeze box).  

I told the kids it would be great fun for them to play a tune together and then have Coach come in from out of nowhere and fake Irish dance.  Can you say viral?  I kid.  The kids think I am weird and dumb, so there's not a chance in hell they will go for it, but trust me here - Coach has been around Irish dancing enough that he 'knows enough to be dangerous' - a catch phrase that reminds me I am happy to not be part of the business world anymore.  Anyway, if I can get Coach to demonstrate his fake-ness at the dance I will share.  Positively hilarious.  Maybe we can get Kari  join in with her fake dancing via ZOOM.

Cute masks right?  I hope
someplace finds a use
for them.  

sewing - I guess my future grandchildren can be grateful for all of the costumes I sewed and saved, because not sure these two will stick with this.  Mini seemed to like it but she keeps breaking the thread which she refers to as the string and has to wait for me to re-thread the needle.  Sweet Jesus- my two grandmothers performed a simultaneous roll-over in their respective graves.  

art - This is Mini's gift.  Pure and simple.  Sadly, she was in an art class at school this semester and now is not able to have the supplies she enjoyed there, but she is still using what we have at home to do what she can.  She was really, really loving that class.  Said it was a great way to relieve stress.  She will not likely have space on her schedule the rest of high school to fit in another art class.  Maybe in college?

This is a charcoal Mini did of Curly.  I should have
 uploaded the baby pic of Curly so you could see that
it looks quite a bit like her. 
This pic I took looks a bit distorted.

writing - Since Reg is the least likely to do schoolwork (even Tank has upped his game knowing college is around the corner), I told him he needed to write something today.  Like I do not know what happened, but Reg was once a great student.  Sigh.  

Reggie actually
wrote a DBQ.
 I made the photo
very small, but
I was thrilled that he
followed directions
and managed
not to write in
 his usual microscopic
 size penmanship.

I ordered Ed to come up with a decent prompt for Reg.  It was something like:  Describe one thing that is inconvenient about the pandemic and two ways in which you have made good use of your circumstances.  He actually wrote something and it wasn't terrible.  Nothing like a small glimmer of hope in pandemic times.  

rationing/math - I have got this one down pat.  "Don't eat dinner food for lunch, damn it!"  "Only 2 cups of milk per person per meal, PLEASE!"  Plus we 'attended' palm Sunday mass on Sunday in our family room with a YouTube video or something Coach connected to the TV.  

Afterwards Curly got close enough to see that 44 people disliked the video (this sent many chuckles through my irreverent little offspring - someone disliked church.  That's funny shit) and I am quoting Curly here, 

"What?  1.9 people liked it?  How can you have 1.9 people?"  

Mini set this still life up in the living room
in February and then created this out of
pastels at school.  It is her fiddle and Reg's
 concertina and my grandmother's old footstool.  

Then Mini pointed out while completely flabbergasted:  "See the 'k' after the 1.9 - yeah, that means thousand."  

Then Mini turned to me with eyes bugging out of her head, as if to say:  "You need to step up your game here." 

So, see- math lessons are all around us and we are gaining on it.  

cussing - No one is better than me at teaching their offspring this anti-stressing approach to life and all things pissy  No. One.  

cleaning - I give up.  Our half-grown ass children are unteachable here.  No.  Really.  I have officially stopped caring.  Tempting to create a vlog of sorts and expose you to the apparent changing area/upstairs hallway littered with their clothes - why?  Or God forbid the children's bathroom - I shudder.  No, I will not over-share with a video record of the state of the house.  

See, I got this.  Oh, and they are studying cinematography too, because of the number of movies they are watching.  I could go on.  

Who the hell needs school?