Show your kids how to use a hand calculator

Let's assume a simple four function calculator.  Show 'em how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.  For really young children see if they understand what these functions mean in the real world.  Add they probably know.  As in I have two baskets of apples.  How many apples do I have total. Subtract is not too hard, I have a dozen apples.  We eat 5 apples, how many are left?
   Multiply is a little more abstract.  Try this.  Each man eats three Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) a day.  We are going out on a seven day patrol. There are 29 men in the squad.  How many MREs do I draw out from supply?
   For divide consider a 40 foot long railroad car, a gondola say.  How many shipping containers 8 foot square can I load into the gondola?  Then try them on 7 foot shipping containers, which gets into remainders.  Then try them on miles per gallon. 
   Then show 'em how to add up a long column of numbers.  You clear the accumulator and punch in the numbers one by one.  Hit + after each number.  Hit = to add them all up.
   Then show them how to take a percent.  For extra credit show 'em how to convert a fraction into a decimal.
   Get thru all that and you have done something good. 

Heard another good one on TV. "Liquidity Facility"

"Liquidity Facility".  Part of the "Phase 3"  bailout bill going thru Congress.  What a nice name for a bailout bucket. 

Beat the Press was in fine form this morning

Of course all they talked about was the Corona virus epi/pan demic.  Chuck Todd opened with 10 minutes of just plain bashing of President Trump.  Helpful that is.  Then he gave Bill DeBlasio, the nutcase NYC mayor, a lot of air time.  DeBlasio wailed and cried that the government wasn't doing enough to help NYC.  He never got into specifics, except that he wants the US Army to send all its medical people to New York to help out. 
   And them we get to interviewing Pat Toomey, Republican senator from Pennsylvania.  "We have an important PROCEDURAL vote coming up this afternoon and then we will know..."  Good old US senate, the plague is sweeping the land and they cannot bring themselves to vote on a real issue, like passing the "phase 3" economic repair bill.  Procedural votes are just time wasters. 

Do a nature walk with the children

You would think every kid ought to be able to tell the difference between and an oak and a maple, a spruce and pine, and put a name to at least some of the wildflowers out there.  For this to happen, the kids have to see the trees and wildflowers in question.  Of course, either you have to be a fairly decent naturalist yourself, or you need a field guide to trees and wild flowers.  With the field guide the kids can find flowers and trees and you look them up in the field guide.  The weather is warming, snow is mostly gone, a;; the wildflowers are coming up as buds right now. 

The Incredibles II.

The first Incredible flick from Pixar was cute. The sequel is meh.  Not quite sure just what makes the difference, but the second one is not as cute, or as funny, as the first one. 

Try your library for educational videos

Franconia's library is about as small as they come, but they had/have a really dynamite video about the American revolution.  It was mostly lectures by a Gettysburg College history professor.  He was good, spoke well and clearly.  He had a few visual aids, a map or two, some paintings, but mostly just spoke standing behind a lectern.  No History Channel style CGI.  I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it.  He told the story straight, the accepted story, no Charles and Mary Beard Economic Interpretation of the Constitution stuff.  Although it was a college level course, I am sure that middle school kids and up would get a lot out of it.  I am sure there are a lot of other gems like this in your local library. 

Introduce your kids to Shakespeare

Yet another home school project to fill in the time while the public schools are closed for COVID-19.  Shakespeare is something everyone should know.  Reading Shakespeare is difficult, you  are reading just the dialog of a play not a novel.  Far better is to watch the play acted out by good actors.  Netflix has good productions of a lot of the Shakespeare plays.  Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Henry the Fifth, Merchant of Venice, and more. Watch them with your children and then discuss them.  Talk about motives, who is a good guy, who is a bad guy.  Who did a good thing and who did a bad thing.  Who is REALLY in love with who.