It's May! And the end of Week 7 of NLS! Today:

• Song of the Day was One by U2.

• In the morning, the boys powered through their remaining schoolwork for the week. Lucas learned about why we have day and night for science (see picture with "sun" and "earth"), practiced piano, and finished up his "Frida Catlo" project for art. Nico practiced piano, drew Georgia Aquarium animals for art, and turned in his week's work online.

• Why the powering through? Because after they finished they got to watch a movie! Today's "end of a good long week" treat was The Incredibles.

• After rest time, we read a LOT of chapters of the third book in the Dragon Masters series.

• And then for recess we went to the church parking lot. Nico did some great biking and Lucas went back to his big boy bicycle, but this time with the training wheels at their highest setting; once he got the hang of it with some help from Mommy, the wheels hardly touched the ground at all!

Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was Centerfield by John Fogerty (thanks Grandpa Richard for the recommendation!). We ditched the guitar today and instead watched this video, which was great!

• Perhaps inspired by the song and the video, Nico took game two of the Backyard World Series. This time Mommy represented Team Grownups and did much better than Daddy, keeping the score to a respectable 10-7 with her dramatic 1st ever backyard home run, a grand slam into the Davis' yard.

• Thanks very much to Tata for helping identify the family members in the great pictures that Tío Andres sent! We enjoyed seeing Tía Lili and Tía Chechi as very young kids with Great Great Abuelita Berta.

• For distance learning today - Nico did math, fundations, and Spanish. Lucas did math and Spanish.

• And the boys lucked out and got a lot of extra tech time in the morning.

Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was Teach Your Children Well by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, featuring lessons for Mommy and Daddy ("teach your children well), for Nico and Lucas ("teach your parents well"), and for all of us ("just look at them and sigh... and know they love you").

• Using his new marble run, Nico recorded this video for his class of a marble race between Team Galactic, the O'Rangers, and The Limers!

• For his writing assignment, Lucas was asked to write about something that makes him happy and came up with an excellent topic very quickly (see pictures for what he wrote).

• For science, Nico conducted a rigorous experiment of travel distances of a toy car on multiple surfaces. For writing, he completed his report on leatherback turtles.

• No PM recess today, but a good long AM recess, including more bike riding from Lucas and a very lopsided baseball game; Nico's Washington Nationals crushed Daddy's St. Louis Cardinals 12-1 in the first game of the backyard World Series.

• More Family Tree Project updates! Tío Andres sent a bunch of photos and names and dates from Chile, allowing us to fill in some more information about Great Great (2G) and Great Great Great (3G) Grandparents on Tata's side.

Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was Skylar Gray's cover of Ben E. King's Stand by Me. We learned about Stand By Me in this week's version of Oakie's News (the daily news show from school) because Mrs. A used a quote from the song for a discussion of why it's important to support our crew and to be supported by our crew.

• This week is Lucas' turn to explore the world of editing Google Slides and using shortcut keys to copy and paste. As you can see from the pictures, Lucas enjoyed this A LOT.

• For distance learning, Nico had fundations, math, and PE. When that was done, he made major progress on his marble run!

• Lucas had math, science, and PE. Science was a lesson on forces -- push, pull, friction, and gravity.

• Another update on the Family Tree Project today! Courtesy of GrandNan and the boys' 2nd cousin twice removed (?) Robin Hruska (her grandfather was Adolf Hruska's brother), we got info on two new Great Great Great (3G) grandparents: Nathan and Anna Hruska! Nathan was born in ~1840 in Rozsahegy, Hungary.

• We had a late afternoon recess, but got in some good backyard baseball and foosball. And Nico received a very nice plant arrangement from Mrs. Staton!

Week 7!! Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was You Are My Sunshine.

• Breaking News: This weekend, LUCAS STARTED RIDING A BIKE WITH NO TRAINING WHEELS!! He's been using his big bike with training wheels at the church parking lot and on Sunday he pulled his old little bike (no training wheels) out of the garage and ... just started riding it! He practiced some more today.

• Also Breaking News: Nico's teachers must have been reading his mind (or this website) because this week's optional STEM assignment is to BUILD A MARBLE RUN! We're looking forward to seeing how it goes...

• For writing today, Nico wrote a conclusion for his report on leatherback turtles and Lucas' assignment was to write about something he was proud of - good timing! See the pictures for his topic.

• Also very exciting today - we received and started the second book in the Dragon Masters series.

• And if that wasn't enough excitement, Lucas also had a small group chat with both of his teachers and Anderson, Carter, and Ben!