Tag: homeschool

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Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Gardening, Quarantine Week 9

a girl gardening

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Gardening, Quarantine Week 9 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

We’ve buried a lot of things in the backyard recently. From a fish funeral to a time capsule, my kids, Remy and Bo, have gotten used to digging holes over the past two months. The thrilling part is what they find: Worms, snails and more worms.

My 3-year-old, Bo, is a worm connoisseur. He knows every variety they come in, from long ones to fat ones to stubby ones. Worms are his biggest motivation in life.

This weekend, my husband, Ross, was equally elated about worms. Earthworms are a gardener’s gold and a benchmark for healthy soil. They speed up the composting process and help mix soil by eating the bacteria growing on decaying plants and giving off “worm castings” —  a nutrient-filled type of manure that plants love. As we were out in the garden planting seeds and seedlings, Ross took the abundance of worms he found crawling in the dirt as a sign that the growing season would be successful.

“It is going to be a great garden this year,” he said.

In response, my 7-year-old, Remy, started pumping out worm facts.

“Did you know worms have five hearts? They also breathe through their skin and don’t have any eyes. I’ve been studying them,” she told me.

Like many Vermonters, the first thing Ross did when he heard about the quarantine was to start planning for an expanded garden. He had the kids start seedlings with him in the house as part of their homeschooling curriculum. Watching the seeds sprout up from the soil never gets old for them. But perhaps the best part of planting this year was the digging. The creepy crawlers were like buried treasures.

Worms are a great reminder that life is odd and, at the same time, resilient. These creatures without eyes and ears might spend most of their time buried beneath the surface, but they are the first things you see in the aftermath of a rainstorm. And when life tears them in half, instead of dying, they multiply and crawl off in different directions to continue enriching gardens and delighting kids.

Music by Ben Sound:
bensound.com

seedlings growinga girl holds a wormgirl planting a flowerkids look at garden

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Time Capsule, Quarantine Day 36

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES: Time Capsule, Quarantine Day 36 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

We’ve been circling the block a lot, going on neighborhood walks. This seems fitting because time itself has started to feel circular. Our mornings often begin where our nights left off, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I spent the day running in circles around the kids. This weekend we took a shortcut through a tunnel of trees. The lighting was just right and created a perfect shadow reflection of the trees’ long slender branches. We started talking about how trees grow from the inside and track time through growth rings that are permanently logged into their layers. The harder the tree’s winter, the tighter the growth ring.

“It’s a trunk full of history in there,” I told my kids.

When we got home I pointed to the coffee table my father-in-law had made when he was a teenager from the found cross-section of an enormous ponderosa pine tree trunk. We tried to count the rings on it but couldn’t make it past 58.

Having lapped past a full month at home, we started thinking about ways we could record our time. I brought up the idea of creating a quarantine time capsule to dig up in exactly one year that included each of our favorite memories over the past month. We presented the kids with a glass jar — like we were literally trying to preserve the memories like pickles — and told them to collect something for the time capsule.

My 7-year-old, Remy, brought out a toy rabbit in honor of Easter and swapped out the jar for a handmade, wooden treasure chest. My husband, Ross, put in a pencil and sharpener to remember working on art and school assignments with Remy. I put in my birthday candles, having recently added another year to my age. And my 3-year-old, Bo, put in a toy figure of Batman’s sidekick Robin and his socks.

I’m hopeful in a year he’ll be able to tell me why.

Categories
Quarantine

Stay-School Adventures: Spring Cleaning, Quarantine Days 25-28

Stay-School Adventures: Spring Cleaning, Quarantine Days 25-28 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

The swamp next door has become my spirit animal. It takes in toxins, churning them over like a giant strainer and purifying the water. It squeezes the best parts out of bad things — a perfect example of what to do when life gives you lemons.

On Saturday, I was staring out the window, looking at the swamp, when my friend called from Brooklyn to tell me her father had died that morning of COVID-19. I looked at the swamp, trying to churn out something to say.

Earlier in the week, my kids had announced they were “moving out.” They spent the week spring-cleaning their play fort in the backyard revamping it into a “permanent” residence. My daughter got the idea from an episode of Fancy Nancy.

The play fort was like a clown car, filled with old balls, bats and baskets overflowing down the slide. I couldn’t believe how much had been crammed in there. We finally had our answers for where all the lost items had been hiding.

I watched my kids hand off piggy banks and miniature furniture to each other, beautifying their 9-square-foot space with a small stool, a tea set and a handcrafted chandelier made from pipe cleaners, tape and ribbon. They asked my husband to wood burn a “Welcome” sign, then secure it over their front door with a drill.

With every passing week of isolation, my kids’ imaginations flourish and they connect more with their internal worlds. It’s as if the daily costumes are shields, enabling them to create their own realities.

The trash has become their treasure. They even intercepted a tattered rainbow tablecloth on its way to the garbage can. It’s become the portal to their new life.

Categories
Quarantine

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES, A Fish Funeral + The Death of a Snowman, Quarantine Day 0

STAY-SCHOOL ADVENTURES, A Fish Funeral + The Death of a Snowman, Quarantine Day 0 from Cat Cutillo on Vimeo.

This is a retrospective: Its Friday the 13th and I’ve picked up my kids from school and brought them to Barnes & Noble to buy a birthday present for a party my daughter is excited for on Sunday. I’m simultaneously texting with my friend who lives in Florida and had visited us just last week. Her son’s school has just been cancelled for at least two weeks.

The reality is sinking in that this thing is fast approaching. I suddenly realize we need to leave the store immediately and go home. It suddenly hits me we will probably be missing the birthday party altogether.

When we get home, we decide its time for the fish funeral. The ground has thawed just enough so we can dig a hole. Shiny is the oldest fish I’ve every known and just this week she has died. We estimate she was 300 in fish years because she was 1.5 in human years. So on Friday the 13th we lay Shiny to her final resting spot in our backyard.

Unfortunately, it is also the death of a snowman in our backyard.  We had built him just a week earlier with our visiting Florida friends. But now with the thaw, he is just a pile of dirty snow with his pipe sticking out.