Photography
I had my camera out the other day and Steven was suddenly very interested in it. He has lots of devices he could take photos with, but the actual camera really caught his attention. So we’ve decided to take on a weekly photography challenge!
The list of weekly prompts is at the top of this post. You can download and print the colour version or the black and white version if you want to post it on your wall or something. Week 1 is this week, ending January 9. I made a facebook group for sharing the photos. Feel free to join us!
I will be giving him short photography lessons roughly once a week too. This week I plan on covering the absolute basics of composition: the rule of thirds. Next week we’ll cover other forms of composition… and that’s as far as I’ve thought. My goal is to cover the kind of general visual art skills first while he uses the auto and scene selection options on his camera. Then I’ll get into the nitty gritty of how the camera actually works if he’s still interested in photography.
Homeschooling
The original plan for January was to pull out our NaNoWriMo novels again and start editing. But instead we’ve decided to focus on the Health curriculum, specifically growth mindset, managing emotions and positive motivation. It’s something we’ve already been working on as needed, but I think a focus on it is needed… and with any luck it will make the rest of this school year less stressful for everyone.
To start with, I’ve created a monthly tracker that Steven and I have both posted on the wall and will be filling out. It includes daily habit trackers, a morning and afternoon mood tracker and a mini daily journal for positive thoughts. My hope is that this will help us be more aware and in control of our emotions and help us form some healthy habits as well.
I also printed off this Mindfulness Activities book, which has some strategies for calming down when needed. We’re going to go over those tomorrow, and I’ve made a place for it to hang on the wall so it’s easy for Steven to access if it helps him.
Here are some other free resources I’ve found:
- Growth Mindset Doodle Desk Cards and Writing Prompts
- Instead of this say that poster
- Quote posters
- Colouring and reflection quote posters
- The Power of “Yet” worksheet
- Quote reflection worksheets
- Growth Mindset and Overcoming Setbacks reading Comprehension
- Growth Mindset Mini Lesson
- Puzzle
- Growth Mindset Statements worksheets
- Challenging Automatic Negative Thoughts Poster
- Recognizing Automatic Negative Thoughts (this is free, but it’s part of a bundle that I bought here that I think will be useful)
- Goal Setting Worksheet
- 50 things you can control
I’m not sure yet which resources we’ll use this week. Honestly, I mostly just wanted to get back in the habit of blogging today. But I’ll be sure to post an update next week on what we covered and what is working.
Lockdown… again
Surprise, surprise, we went to full on lockdown again on boxing day. It was originally going to be Christmas eve, but I guess people complained enough about missing their dinners or whatever that they postponed it a few days. There were rumors that the police would be out ticketing people who were driving in the wrong direction on Christmas.
We’re still breaking records almost daily as far as the number of cases goes. But there are two vaccines out now, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel… assuming this thing doesn’t mutate or otherwise surprise scientists again. There’s a whole plan for who is going to get vaccinated first, second and third, and the current estimate is that the general public will have access to the vaccines in July.
I guess that’s it for now. I’m going to try and get back to posting once a week this year and hopefully find time to get back to organizing the resource pages too. Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday! Let me know if you decide to do the photo challenge!
