For parents: Things to do with your kids at home

As I write this, my younger son (L) is writing a 7-page research paper on a rake and scrape Caribbean song "Times Table," for his class "Music and World Cultures." Denali (Center) is working on a piece of beadwork, a multimodal composition. My older son (R) is preparing a list of interview questions for Greg Carlson about the Fargo Film Festival. He has to write a 15-page research paper on it for his class "International Art Cinema." We are settling into a routine of work time after breakfast.

Here big google doc list of things to do with your kids at home: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o6kEgCKLn3cyIm2hehhhSTIk7yRTd0C3zx49JS4wwCI/preview

One of the ideas on the list is "Try stop motion animation with playdough." My older son did that in his free time when he was younger. Here is a sample from his Youtube channel "Claymation Mania." There are a lot of literacy skills involved, like writing. He always made storyboards for these videos, and I can see how those early literacy skills are helping him today, as he outlines questions for his interview. 

I'm here in the middle of the scene, attending to emails and blogs, but also attentive to the energy of the composers around me. One of them just asked to talk through his outline with me, so I listened carefully, asked a couple of questions, affirmed he was on the right path, and now he's starting to draft.