blog – Pod of One

Gardening is Fun (and Educational)

One of our big events at the beginning of the virus was gardening. Amelia’s great grandmother had given her a few packets of flower seeds, so we started with those.

First, we went over a few online lessons about plants and seeds, since that’s a pretty popular lesson in Pre-K. We started with Scholastic, which had a whole lesson created for teachers. Then we watched a YouTube video or two and read a few books on how plants grow. One was Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed.

Then it was time to plant the seeds. We had to order seed dirt from Amazon because, you know, quarantine. I would usually go to our township’s free dirt pile. You should definitely look into your township to see if they have a similar program. They collect our yard waste and then create the best soil out of it. The only catch? You have to go with buckets and shovel it yourself.

Of course, Amelia really enjoys shoveling dirt into her buckets while I fill mine, so it is usually a good time.

But this time we used store-bought dirt, and it was really great. We talked about the whole process as we planted them, looked up how often to water them, and waited.

And waited.

There are many reasons gardening can be a positive experience for kids. Rasmussen College lists moderate exercise, healthier eating habits, stress relief and an early awareness of STEM development as a few.

We finally started seeing buds, and practiced using rulers and writing numbers as they grew, recording their growth as they progressed. Eventually, a friend gave us a ton of vegetable seeds (she is a self-proclaimed over-buyer of seeds, which worked out great for us) and we planted zucchini, pickle cucumbers, string beans, tomatoes and sweet peppers.

We learned how often to water them and made a daily routine of taking care of our garden. It was a great mental break from everything going on.

Eventually, we plotted out a veggie garden and transplanted them outside. For a while we had so many zucchini that we had to start giving them to neighbors. Amelia LOVES zucchini, especially grilled, but even she was over it after a while. Maybe I’ll share our recipe for grilled zucchini in a future post.

We had so many flowers grow that our small gardens are overflowing with flowers at this point. But the lesson was extended over a period of months because of the growth of the plants, taking care of them, and then harvesting either veggies or seeds for next year.

Of course, this would also work indoors, especially with flowers. Amazon has pretty cheap seeds, but be careful where you order them from. It’s always good to make sure they will be at your house within a week or so, especially with that whole seed scam going on right now.

Overall, I found this lesson enjoyable because I like gardening, and she learned a lot about plants. Plus whenever we are outside she runs to our string bean plant, pulls a few off, washes them and eats them raw. She loves it.

Kid’s Yoga on Youtube

One day, Amelia noticed my wife’s yoga mat sitting out and asked if we could do some yoga. I figured there had to be some for kids on Youtube, so we did a quick search.

Wow. There are A LOT of yoga videos aimed at children.

I never thought I would be sitting on our carpet doing children’s yoga. But here we are…and my daughter loves it.

Everyone is looking for new ways to keep their kids busy, and come Fall might be looking for ways to fulfill that gym requirement, especially on rainy days when they can’t play outside. Whatever your child’s age or grade, when school is open they get some form of exercise. Now that WE are the teachers, physical activity can be overlooked.

According to the CDC, “Regular physical activity can help children and adolescents improve cardiorespiratory fitness, build strong bones and muscles, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, and reduce the risk of developing health conditions.”

Marlynn Wei, MD, JD of Harvard Health Blog agrees. “Yoga and mindfulness offer psychological benefits for children as well. A growing body of research has already shown that yoga can improve focus, memory, self-esteem, academic performance, and classroom behavior, and can even reduce anxiety and stress in children.”

Those are some great reasons to make sure our kids are exercising daily, especially in the days of Switches, iPads and online learning. But another key focus in our current situation is anxiety and depression. We can’t always tell when our children are feeling these things, so daily exercise is a good idea.

That’s where children’s yoga comes in. There are plenty of instructors and youtubers creating yoga content just for children. And they are all as simple as heading to YouTube.

As I went through the choices, Amelia yelled “Cosmic Kids Yoga!” After a quick Q & A session it turns out she had been doing it in Pre-K all along. So I started on and she sat right down into a meditation pose.

After a moment, she asked me for oranges. Apparently, in school they always had fruit while doing yoga, and I wasn’t going to argue against healthy eating. So I left the room to slice some oranges for her, and when I came back, she was totally into the lesson.

This particular yoga instructor, Jaime, does a great job reaching children. Each episode has a theme, such as Frozen, Trolls, Minecraft and Spider-man. Then there are other topics, such as the episode “What is Mindfulness and How to do it.”

The Cosmic Kids Yoga website even offers lesson plans and handouts for sale, and a blog where they share ideas and advice. There definitely other channels of yoga for kids, but this is our go-to channel. The video length and themes seem perfect to us.

One of the more recent blog posts is about dealing with anxiety in children during the pandemic. We watched this one together, and then had a chat about how she was feeling about all of these changes in our life.

These days, I have added yoga to our regular weekly lessons, and sometimes she even requests it. Even in the evening she will ask my wife if they can do it.

The beauty of yoga is that it can be a solitary or group event if you have multiple children or a pod.

It’s helping. My daughter is much more calm and relaxed than she was a few weeks ago, and it gives me a chance to get some work done while she poses, stretches and meditates. As long as I remember to bring her those orange slices.

Welcome

Hello and Welcome!

I am starting this blog hoping that I can help others who may be struggling with educating their children while school is out.

Teaching our kids is hard. I’m not sure how many people knew that before COVID-19, but I think we all know it now. Boy do I appreciate my daughter’s teachers!

We’ve all been home for a few months, and some of us are out and about again. Others aren’t there just yet, and there are some parents who might not think this will ever end.

I have an education background, and hit the ground running when the pandemic started with plans, schedules and short lessons to help my daughter prepare. She is going into Kindergarten in September, and as of now she is scheduled for twice a week.

I’ve been trying to prepare her as best as I can. It helps that I have a few retired teachers related to me.

Join my daughter and I on this adventure as we learn to read, write and create our way through the pandemic. I plan on sharing ideas, lessons, sometimes educational, sometimes fun, but always interesting.

Hopefully I can help others who are in the same situation.

Let’s get started.