This Wednesday was Steven’s 11th birthday. Luckily he doesn’t mind not being able to have a party this year. Last year, knowing that parties aren’t his favourite thing, we suggested doing something else. Maybe a shopping trip or just taking a couple of good friends somewhere. He chose to spend a whole weekend shopping, eating out, playing board games and video games… He now refers to his birthday as his “reign of terror” because as long as we don’t go over budget, he can do and make us do whatever he wants. This year I apologized that we couldn’t take him and his friends out somewhere and he said he’d rather have a “family time birthday” anyways. Apparently, until last year, he thought birthday parties were some kind of unavoidable social obligation.
This week for school work we mostly finished up the math from last week. I had moved the percentages and stuff he was struggling with last week to this week when I was off work and could help him. I had originally planned on starting with the space science unit this week but had Steven do the Mercury and Venus part of this reading comprehension bundle last week instead when I moved the math work to this week.
One of the things Steven wanted to do this week was lots of baking. Seriously, I don’t think we’ll ever eat all these cookies. I turned the recipes he wanted (lassy mogs, pumpkin sandwich cookies, chocolate chip cookies and butter beer) into fraction worksheets. They weren’t hard to make, but I didn’t make them for download because they aren’t my recipes. I wrote something like “this is for 2 cookies, how much do we need for 18?” and re-typed the list of ingredients, multiplying or dividing accordingly.
Fair warning: the butter beer was too sweet for any of us! Might try another recipe another time. But in making it, Steven decided that he likes cream soda. He has never liked any kind of pop, and he still says the bubbles are weird. But he likes the flavour of cream soda anyways.
That’s really it for school this week. Steven had used one day off he had earned to take Thursday off as well as Wednesday. So we spent two days playing board games and video games and watching My Hero Academia. We also had some socially distant driveway visits with family, which was nice. Steven shares a birthday with one of his cousins. I think this is the first birthday they haven’t celebrated together. But they at least got to talk for an hour or so.
Steven is really into Among Us right now, and it’s honestly a pretty fun little game, and inexpensive too. We also bought and played Fall Guys and Smash Bros Ultimate, both of which are really good games (though I’m not as good at them), and Steven used some of his birthday money to finally buy Lets Go Pikachu, which has absorbed all his free time since yesterday.
Oh! I almost forgot. I found this “Charm Post” subscription service a month or so ago. Steven loved the idea and thought his cousin would like it too, so we ordered it for both of them for their birthday. We didn’t tell his cousin or her family that it was coming, so when she got a letter from “owl post” her mom joked that it better not be her Hogwarts letter! But both kids liked the story, and Steven gave a detailed and overwhelmingly positive critique of the included artwork. If you’re looking for a way to get your kids excited to read, I highly recommend it!
Stay safe!
