Today at NLS:

• Friday Fun Day! After the boys wrapped up their week's work, they got to enjoy a special treat.

• Song of the Day was of course Circle of Life again - this time we went back to the behind the scenes version.

• In the morning, Lucas finished up his Spanish and both boys practiced piano.

• Once they got through that, they got to watch Monsters, Inc.!

• In the afternoon, we celebrated Grandpa Richard's birthday (Happy Birthday Grandpa Richard!) and, right after that, the boys received their shipment from the Oakhurst Book Fair!!

Today at NLS:

• Field Trip Day!! We went back to Arabia Mountain and, yet again, it was beautiful and showed us something different.

• As Nico told Lucas, they both have the three things they need to be expert animal spotters: 1) They love animals. 2) They have great eyesight. 3) They have great hearing. Seeemed like an accurate assessment today!

• Nico got the animal-spotting started by discovering that, even though the original tadpole pond we saw had dried long ago, there was A TINY FROG HOPPING AROUND IN IT! This was very exciting.

• Then, en route to the lake, we encountered a lovely lizard, a butterfly, and two soaring hawks. Thankfully, we did not encounter the suspected rattlesnake that we came across during our Mother's Day hike last weekend. We also discovered that the tiny puddle that had been full of tadpoles on Sunday had dried up unfortunately.

• By the time we got to the lake, Nico pointed out that we had already seen an amphibian, a reptile, an insect, a bird, and - thanks to a squirrel - a non-human mammal.

• At the lake, we heard these incredible frog sounds. And, after some very patient stalking, Nico discovered that these very big sounds were coming from a very tiny frog! And we added fish to our list.

• With all of the excitement we officially skipped Song of the Day today, but that didn't stop Daddy from playing Circle of Life in the car home from Arabia Mountain anyway...

• In the afternoon, Lucas had a video chat with Ms. Hollingsworth and a few of his friends from school, AND a facetime playdate with Skylar!

Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day? Don't you mean Circle of Life of the Day? Today we did another double feature though, following "the usual" with a clip of The Lion Sleeps Tonite.

• For distance learning today, Nico had reading, writing, science, and art. Science included a brief discussion about how trees can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Lucas had fundations, reading, writing, and art. Today's narrative was on "my favorite part of kindergarten" (see picture for final product).

• Throughout the day, the boys took breaks to play chess against Mommy (Nico) and build a giant fort with Daddy (Lucas), and to update and review their Bear Games map.

• PM Recess: biking and catch at Oakhurst Park!

Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was Circle of Life of course, but this time with a twist: we also watched I Just Can't Wait to Be King from The Lion King as well. For Circle of Life, we watched some of the behind the scenes footage from the remake. We all agreed that cute baby Simba is not as cute when they haven't animated his fur yet.

• The morning started with a multi-cereal stacking effort inspired by last night's Cheerio heroics from Rockville. We learned that Lucky Charms marshmallows stack pretty well, Smart Start okay, and Rice Krispies not so much.

• For science, Lucas conducted a "Will It Sink Or Will it Float?" experiment. His bold hypotheses about the floating objects turned out to be all correct! And we learned that some presumed sinkers were actually sneaky floaters.

• For PE, both boys did some impressive on-the-floor Baby Shark aerobics.

• PM recess: biking!

• We closed the NLS day with a video chat to wish GrandNan a Happy Birthday!

Week 9!! Today at NLS:

• Song of the Day was -- wait for it -- Circle of Life. Again? Again!

• Each day we watch Oakie's News, the morning announcements show from school. Today Mrs. A highlighted the mega fort that Nico and Lucas built over the weekend!!

• Each day we also get a video announcement from both boys' teachers. In Ms. Hollingsworth's announcement, she asked "what did you do for Mother's Day?" Lucas typed in the response all by himself - see photos for more!

• We tried to respond to Tío Esteban's Cheerio-stacking challenge, but we didn't have Cheerios, so we tried Lucky Charms.

• Nico had reading (context clues), writing (pronouns), science (changes in our environment), and music. Lucas had fundations, reading, writing, and music. Lucas' writing assignment was to write a narrative about a time he tried something that was scary or made him nervous (see photo). For assistance with his writing he was joined by several of his stuffed friends, including Palta (avocado)!

• AM recess: Nico and Lucas beat Mommy 9-0 in Game 3 of the Backyard World Series. It is not looking good for Team Grownups, who find themselves down 3-0 in a best-of-7 series.

• PM recess: more biking!