Plant with me!

Quarantine check in day# 19.

I feel like my head is just above water here. I’m constantly shuffling between my mom hat, teacher hat, and professional colleague hat. Just this morning I attended a Zoom meeting with a business shirt on top and sweat pants on the bottom—while trying to keep my 3 yr old within arm’s distance of my laptop with a smile on my face. I’m also trying to figure out how the heck I’m going to teach my students online, get my own kids to learn from their teachers online when they’ve never used a computer before, keep up with the virtual trainings, and maybe keep the house from burning down. Does that make sense? Does that sound dizzying? It absolutely is. We were supposed to go back to our school sites on April 6th, and then it was pushed to May 1st, now it’s indefinite. The future was starting to look real grim here.

Then I stumbled on a quote that really spoke to me.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”.

Sending out these seed packets!

It really made me stop, take a breather, and think. I am grateful for mine and my family’s health and the ability to continue nourishing it. As apocalyptic as everything seems right now, I do believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel—and I really want to put some positivity out there by emphasizing on the belief of tomorrow. I felt that I wanted to offer something bright and hopeful to this mom community, as little as it might be. So I’ve combined all of my different hats and, with help from my best mom friends, created these little packets. Just look at that beautiful label my friend Sasha made! Sasha is one of my best mom friends and she co-founded our business, Loralei & Co., with me! She is very talented and also passionate about working with kids—she’s a pediatric nurse practitioner!

Each packet contains a compressed pellet and vegetable seeds —either zucchini, tomatoes, or green beans. I would love to send a packet to you and your little one so you can grow a garden or add to one you might already have!

And of course, being a teacher, I made a lesson plan and additional activities to go along with it. I created two different types of coloring pages, one for Pre-K and under and the other for Kindergarteners and up. I hope you enjoy these packets and coloring pages. They were a true labor of love and the very first time I’ve drawn an actual coloring page. :)

Please email us for your free packet of seeds, and let us know which seeds you would like!

You can download the lesson plan and coloring pages here:

Plant with Me Lesson Plan

Green Bean Coloring Page // Green Bean Facts Coloring Page

Tomato Coloring Page // Tomato Facts Coloring Page

Zucchini Coloring Page // Zucchini Facts Coloring Page

I also have two very special and very little guests who wanted to provide a tutorial for this activity. Enjoy!

Quarantine Check-in

It’s been a little over a week since our school district made the difficult decision to close all schools, and four days since Governor Newsom ordered a shelter-in-place for all of California. During this time, I’ve honestly been scrambling trying to get my work in order while letting my two little ones kind of have a free for all —whoops!

I’ve seen several people post that we should just take this time to spend as a family and forgo a schedule, but as much as I would love to just have one-on-one time with my babies, I was still required to work from home, and I just have an innate need to reach out to my students (who were also blindsided by school closures).

The first week, I let my little ones watch movie after movie, run a muck in our front yard, and just have unstructured play until they were tired. I even let them stay up until 11pm when their usual bedtime is 7:30pm! As the spread of the COVID-19 virus worsens, and the possibility of school being closed for the rest of the school year though, I’m seeing that we really need to have a more structured system in place.

The teacher in me decided to create a visual schedule for my kids to follow (of course it’s laminated). I’ve gone over the pictures with them and now they know when to expect to do schoolwork, circle time/reading time, snack time, playtime, lunchtime, and nap time. Putting a limit on snack time has been the BIGGEST game changer. It’s only been a day, but they refer to their boards to see if they can get a snack.

Playtime!

I’ve also brought out the kids’ Ok to Wake Alarm clock to help them keep track of time. My son is currently learning how to tell time, while my daughter is starting to recognize numbers so she can match the numbers on the board to the one on the clock. It’s a win-win for everyone!

If you’re interested in the icons I used for this visual schedule, I made a PDF so you can download them here ! Want the character to look a little more like your littles? Shoot me a comment and I’d be more than happy to change that for you :) .

I’m curious to know what your household has been doing at home. Please share below!

I’m adding a gallery of things we’ve done the past couple of days when I finally got my sh*t together! ;) We did a few of my favorite things, such as arts/crafts and gardening, and then I made them do things like read and chores! Check out our Instagram for more Indoor Activity ideas on our Kids’ activities highlight reel!