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How To Have Fun And Learn Things On Field Trips (Bonus: Everyone Survives)

I think I’ve finally hacked it….maybe.

Taking uninterested children to museums and field trips is BRUTAL. On one side you tell yourself that your children need to be educated and cultured and have their horizons expanded, on the other side you have the students/children themselves who are loudly protesting how much they hate said field trip. And then you have all the older responsible folk who are all “when I was a kid, we didn’t complain about…”.

And while you’re trying to internally juggle all the things, you’re also trying to pretend that you have nothing else in the world to do than make everyone happy. You’re not also wondering how you’re going to grade papers, get dinner on, feed the dog, schedule the orthodontist appt etc. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I live for bridging the gap between cranky docents who think “children should be seen but not heard” and said children who are convinced the world is devoid of food and fun.

Now that I think about it, I’m not being sarcastic…that’s literally what I live for. I think I may genuinely enjoy bridging that gap between the old and the new.

But I digress.

I happen to so privileged as to live within bike-riding distance of where the Little House On the Prairie series was written. That’s right. The real Laura Ingalls Wilder herself, wrote the famous books not a stone’s throw away from my house. Consequently, my children have been ~~once~~…or ~~twice~~…or ~~several~~…ok many times to the original homestead tours and museum. So when our CC group had a field trip there, I knew I was going to walk that fun tightrope between the out loud “of course we’re going!” and the intense hushed “yes we are going and you are going to be polite and listen to the tour guide and say “yes ma’am and thank you”.

As I was agonizingly doing math with the youngest beforehand, in an attempt to get school done “early”, I realized I was going to need a backup plan. Having been before, I was mentally imagining a bunch of elementary-aged boys (and girls) trying to squeeze into the tiny 120-year-old kitchen filled with priceless artifacts. AND they were successfully supposed to not move or touch anything. Lord have mercy. So I came up with a “scavenger hunt”.

Now granted, I know this is harder to do if you’re traveling and don’t know what you’re getting into, but I think it’s really a fantastic plan. Kids like goals. Kids like tangible things. Sometimes their brains are too underdeveloped to match the grammar with the rhetoric, so they need a bridge. The bridge in this case was an orange wet-erase marker and a laminated sheet of notebook paper. I scribbled down 15 things for them to find and answer, and I evenly divided the tasks between the exhibits and the museum. The reward was a stick of “Penny candy” that now costs 40 cents. Ho hum. Economics lesson aside, I would happily pay 40 cents per kid in order to not get permanently banned from a museum. Of course, the plan did backfire on me when the kids were SO EXCITED to see Pa’s fiddle and to see where Laura lost the money for her homestead, that they went in like a drove of invasive grasshoppers, and promptly got their butts set down by an elderly docent. By the time I sauntered in (a few moments behind them), she was already wrapping up the “don’t make noise, don’t touch anything, don’t breathe on anything” lecture and was ready to launch into the “how to be a responsible chaperone lecture.” What she didn’t know, was that I am happy to take one for the team, in fact, I’d be happy to have her come lecture my children every morning, but she didn’t seem interested in that. Shocking.

After the field trip was over, my kids said it was the best field field trip ever. So. much. fun.

The key really was the “scavenger hunt” (and maybe the presence of their friends, but who’s counting). Everyone needs a job or a mission, and I totally get it! When I was in Paris, I had a mental checklist of everything I wanted to see, and learn, and understand. Why would kids be any different? They just need a little abstract hand-holding.

I’m going to start doing this every time I find myself chaperoning a field trip where I know I’m going to be in over my head. However next time I’m going to have a chat with the Gift Shop Lady first, and I’m also not going to forget all my scavenger hunt stuff on the table. I’m wondering, should I go back and get my pens and paper? Cut my losses? Save face? or chalk it up to a good laugh?

Also, if you ever come to visit, I will happily show you where Laura and Almanzo’s secret cold spring is, and tell you all the “exclusive conspiracy theory” stories.

Donuts and Crystals: An Economics Lesson for Highschoolers

I am loving this school year so much. 9th graders are so much easier than 7th graders (although full confession, I feel like middle school is probably my calling in life). Middle schoolers are like the toddlers of the teenage years. They’re so cute, but kind of a lot.

However… (and that’s a big however). I don’t know if it’s post-covid, or a Gen Z thing or what, but I guarantee you your average high schooler has the ability to break any object lesson or activity that has worked for decades. There is nothing Gen X or Millenial teachers and parents can come up with that Gen Z can’t hack in a nanosecond.

Case in point: We did an “Inflation Game” today with very specific instructions. I was supposed to use beans and candy, but beans are boring and candy is for kids, so I took some floral rock-crystal-things I had and a cheap bag of hostess donuts (don’t judge). I handed out 5 crystals to each student and then offered to “sell” a donut for 10 crystals. This is supposed to be unsuccessful. According to my instructions no one is supposed to be able to buy a donut, thus proving that when money supply is low, inflation is low. You can imagine how well that went.

When I was prepping this activity a few days ago, I dryly predicted to Jim that it would take less than a second for two kids to combine their “money” and buy a donut since a half donut is better than none. I was correct. What I didn’t predict was that kids would start trading their snacks with each other for crystals, thus creating a bartering system outside of my controlled system (I feel like there’s a lesson there).

But it didn’t stop there. For the second part of the activity, I was instructed to give each student several handfuls of “money” (without counting to see who got more or less) and then start an auction for the donuts. As expected (and carefully explained in the directions), the extra money supply drove up inflation. What I didn’t expect is that monopolies quickly formed and two kids were in danger of getting absolutely every single one of the donuts before anyone else got a single one. So the rest of the class banded together and blocked them.

Strong feelings and opinions flew back and forth. At one point they discussed mobbing me and just taking the bag of donuts. I felt the weight of a thousand dictators weighing on my soul. It was dicey for a few moments.

All that to say, I think we learned more about economics in fifteen minutes than we have from any book. And if you try this…don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Cycle 3 Latin/English John 1

Putting this here to prove to my future self I’m not crazy when (if) it changes again.

You know you’ve been in Classical Conversations a long time when they’ve switched the memory work on you multiple times, and you feel gaslit by an otherwise charming and lovely curriculum. lol

It’s not CC’s fault… well it is, but it’s understandable. They occasionally update their curriculum and it’s not their fault I was in my 20s and had two kids when I started CC and I’m now in my 40s with four kids (and the kid who started CC as a 5-year old is now an adult). There were some good old days back there when I was a Foundations tutor and pregnant with my third and would have to run for the nearest trashcan while a kind mom took over my class for a minute. Now I’m just a cranky old Challenge director giving highschoolers the stink eye when they eat snacks through a heart-rending discussion about the Scarlet Letter.

All that to say, Andria and I could NOT figure out the Cycle 3 Latin this year. We wrote an entire workbook to make Latin accessible for ready-to-quit families, but couldn’t figure out the English translation for Foundations. Thankfully the Vulgate never changes, so at least we got that part right.

We printed these sheets, laminated them, and we sing them every morning of Cottage School so the kids have them down pretty good by now although the English is so different from the regular translations we’re used to, that we’re still messing that part up. I think the idea was to pick a translation that more matched the Latin, but if you’re a Challenge director, you will find yourself explaining that half the words are wrong from what they’ll be told in Challenge A, but whatcha gonna do. This is why people have dedicated their whole lives to translating Scripture.

…also we included some tracing sheets for fun.

john-11-7-englishlatin-cycle3 Download

The Evil Charts & Worksheets

This is a small story that features a few homeschooling moms doing life together and me eating my words.

I teach high school Latin at our little cottage school and I’m not going to lie, it’s rough going some days. I occasionally (jokingly!) wonder what I did in a past life to deserve loving Latin so much. Like why couldn’t I have been a surfing instructor? Or teach kids to ride horses? I get jealous of the kids’ jiujitsu instructor. They absolutely love her. The tougher she is on them, the harder they work and the more they respect her. But jiu-jitsu is way cooler than Latin. It’s really not fair. I mean, how did I get stuck trying to impart the love of dead languages to the next generation? It’s like I chose this life or something.

My esteemed prodigies really have learned a lot though this year, and I’m proud of the trenches we’ve slogged through. So proud that I got a teeny tiny bit defensive on their behalf when Andria brought in an entire booklet of charts for them to work on. They’re doing great! They don’t need charts! Away with the charts! In her defense, she just got a spiral binding machine and if that was me, I would be printing and spiral binding everything in sight (right after I laminated it).

After I passionately and eloquently pleaded the case against repetitive charts, she brought out the big guns by invoking the name, “Mrs. Owen”. She basically has homeschooling sainthood status in our house at this point. Back in the early days of cottage school, back when we lived in California, and the boys were wee young lads, she was the one who got everyone doing brain training exercises. She was the one who pushed us to help our kids learn to read when we were ready to give up. She was the one who refused to give up on what seemed like hopeless cases. And she was the one who had our 9-year-old boys writing out verb anatomy charts and noun cases like they were second nature. Charlie knew his English and Latin verb tenses better at ten years old than I did as a middle-aged woman. Even today I’m pretty sure you could pull a fire alarm, shine a flashlight in his face, drag him out of bed in the middle of the night, and say “Conjugate laudo/laudare in all 6 indicative tenses” and he would churn them out without even opening his eyes. Andria did the same with the kids and math facts.

So they clearly work.

I don’t know why I fight them so hard sometimes. I guess because they truly are unpopular these days and I want to be like the cool kids. I also think that for some kids they don’t work as well, and they shouldn’t take too big a chunk of the “learning” pie graph. They don’t replace good conversations, deep understanding, and different kinds of learning, but they definitely add to it. They also are great time fillers for one kid to do while you’re working with another kid.

For me, my kids aren’t the fastest workers in the world, so we don’t always have time to finish all the charts, but that’s the beauty of doing school with other homeschoolers, you balance out each other’s weaknesses.

When Andria reminded me of Mrs. Owen and how our kids thrived under her reign of charting, I had to cede the field. I probably will never love charts, but I see their place in life. Some of my kids actually like doing charts and all of my kids probably need to do some more repetitive memorization. When you know something so quickly and easily that it’s almost second nature, it frees up your brain to make all kinds of more abstract connections. It makes understanding things much easier, and innovation follows shortly on its heels (even if that innovation involves figuring out how to write only half your math problems down).

Really this is an ode to the Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Tallmans of the world. Thank you for not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Thank you for holding the line. Thank you for investing in my children.

(but I still probably will only do half of the charts).

Thoughts About Geography, Cartography, Therapy and Homeschooling

“Let me count the ways I love thee…”

Geography is one of those lost arts that is so smothered in a sea of fake/unhelpful/wannabe books, games, workbooks, and curriculum that sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s one of those instantly marketable items. Slap a map and the word “Geography” or “Educational” on the front of it, and we parents are quick to snap them up off of Amazon, library clean-out sales, hand-me-downs, or the thrift store like they’re desperate promises to our future selves (I mean, surely I’m not the only one with visions of perfectly curated themed bookshelves and travel themed unit studies). And don’t even get me started on the geography-themed games and flashcards…

But all that geography stuff usually is so colorful and well-designed, that you don’t realize it’s kind of shallow and unengaging (and oftentimes downright full of errors). Consequently, the problem isn’t that there aren’t tons of options for Geography, but that it’s a struggle to find stuff you’ll actually use.

And Geography is one of those subjects that packs so much bang for its buck. Not only is it math, history, art, and science all in one parcel, but it’s also visual processing, concrete/abstract processing, spatial processing, executive functioning… all the things. It’s basically a custom-designed torpedo pod of academics and therapy all tied up into one perfect package. The only thing that might beat it at all those things is the violin, but that’s a post for another day.

The problem is if you dive in and dig deep and engage with it…drawing and pronouncing, and wrestling with longitude and latitude, various sizes and projections, and whatnot, it’s hard. Sometimes extraordinarily hard, depending on how your kid’s brain is wired (or your brain), but I’ve seen profoundly dyslexic eyes thrive, and dysgraphia fingers map the whole world from heart (I can’t read it, but still…). Not going to lie, I’ve also seen kids cry and I’m not above bribes (and paint…and music…but mostly lots of paint). But seeing their minds grow and the connections made, I feel like it’s worth it to find your way through it.

And I don’t just say that because I wrote a cartography workbook which you can find here (insert cheesy infomercial music). Or made a bunch of fun, silly videos to help memorize and draw the world by heart which you can watch here (feel free to judge me, but don’t knock it til you try it…it works).

In the end, it doesn’t matter, pull out the colorful Costco Walmart Geograph specials, and just have fun with it…but maybe Google fact-check the stuff that doesn’t pass the sniff test. Really, this is an ode to how much I love geography. 😍

Kindergarteners, Sensory Input and the Story of Mr. Thomas of a CC

Sometimes teaching life feels like an episode of Iron Chef, but instead of making tacos out of shrimp, manzanita berries, and Irish peas, it’s trying to keep your class fun and educational on thrift store donations, calcifying craft supplies, and a packet of dry-erase makers.

I recently read Stories That Stick by Kindra Hall, which isn’t meant for educators, but I’ve found that the business world often has the best (not new) but reframed ideas for home and classroom. It reminded me of back in my Foundations days, when I was an Abecedarian tutor (the little guys in the Classical Conversations world). Homeschooling always attracts a mixture of kids who run the gamut from reciting the entire periodic table of elements at four, to hiding under their desks at co-op or class days pretending to be a gorilla (and oftentimes they’re the same kid). And not that I’m not totally on board with CC’s policy of having the moms in the room on class days, but to be honest, kids listen a lot better when their Nannie McPhee teacher tries to get them to skip count the threes, than when their mom tries to cajole them into participating…at least that was my experience with the younger ages. Honestly, though, I loved every minute of it. I think four and five-year-olds are hilarious, even when they’re painting their neighbor’s frilly pink dress in black shoe polish from their Dore art projects.

But I digress… Our CC campus at the time also happened to be my home church, and so I sometimes helped clean things out or went through stuff people donated for the nursery, and that’s how I stumbled across Mr. Francis of a CC. He was one of those giant teddy bears kind of like the ones they used to sell at Costco. He was very much not disinfectable for the nursery, but I couldn’t bear to let him go (pun intended…ha). He had so much potential! So I moved him to my CC classroom and I’m telling you, I’ve never had so much success getting preschoolers and kindergarteners to do stuff!

“Let’s sing the Latin Noun Declensions more loudly and see if we can wake Mr. Francis up!”

“Mr. Francis is waiting for everyone to sit down quietly before he can chant irregular verbs with us”

“Having a meltdown? Go lay on the giant stuffed teddy bear and give him the tightest hug you can”

“Can’t sit still or keep your hands to yourself? Go jump on the giant teddy bear.”

The kids loved him. We created all sorts of make-believe stories and narratives about him and used him for all types of pretend play. It was my best Abecedarian year ever.

I was sad when I moved on to the older kids the next year and didn’t take Mr. Francis with me. I don’t know whatever happened to him, I think he ended up finally retiring to a thrift store where I’m now imagining all kinds of Toy Story endings for him. But I think the magic of Mr. Francis lives on and can be recreated in an infinite variety of ways, one just needs two things.

Sensory input and stories.

The very large nature of Mr. Francis and the proprioceptive input kids got from jumping on something or falling into something big and soft, was very calming, and the stories and characterization made him real and gave them a reason to not eat their boogers, or helped them stand up tall and straight for their presentations. But really anything works. At that age, you can take playdough and stick googly eyes on it and name it Mr. Slimy Pants or something. Teenagers are a bit harder because they still need the sensory input and stories, but they’re not quite as willing to look silly, but that’s a different blog post for a different day.

For now, I would just like to say “Rest in peace Mr. Frances of a CC you were well loved, and may your life lessons live on.“

Also, I need a giant Appa in my life. Like this, but way way bigger.

In Defense of kids who don’t like math

Full disclosure, I was one of those kids. Notice I said ‘was”, because along with my black thumb, and fear of talking to strangers, time really does heal all things (or most things). While I won’t be winning any Nobel prizes in astro physics, nor becoming a horticulturist or the next Malcolm Gladwell, I have mastered all those things to the point where I don’t start panicking and breaking out in hives when I have to do trinomial equations or save the butternut squash from the vine borers. (Well mostly there’s no panicking, I do still occasionally turn bright red when talking to strangers).

Part of it is some kids just don’t like numbers, or maybe it would be more accurate to say, that numbers don’t like them (I’m looking at you Dyscalculia). I mean, there’s nothing wrong with their brains, numbers are just slippery bits of squiggly lines that go in one ear and fall right out the other. I didn’t realize I could do math until I met geometry and propositional logic. Put interesting concepts and theories in His Royal Majesty the King’s English and suddenly it all makes sense.

But now that I’ve taught math both in the classroom and at home for fourteen years now, I’ve made some observations. There’s a group of kids who seem like they’re bad at math, or maybe it takes them forever to get through a lesson, but it’s not because they have the aforementioned Houdini number problem. They usually have really good number sense…too good. And that’s their hangup. For kids who have more abstract brains (Ne or Ni for the Myers Briggs nerds), their mind has to do a lot of sorting and thinking and connecting while they’re doing math. They can’t just be told how to do something. They tend not to trust it, and they second guess themselves constantly because nobody gave them all the puzzle pieces and they’re missing connector pieces that would bring the whole picture together. Now obviously there is a brand of math lover who is both abstract, loves arithmetic, is good with numbers, and is super fast…but we’re not talking about those unicorns. We hate those people (just kidding…and if any of my brothers are reading this, no I really am ~~jealous~~ proud of your ridiculously impressive math skills). For the math sloths, the problem isn’t that they can’t do math, the problem is they’re climbing a mountain in their head where you can’t see, and then having a meltdown like Mt. St. Helens because they’re sure they’re the worst math student the world has ever seen and they’re never going to understand it (middle schoolers are especially dramatic about math…ask me how I know).

At this point, I think I have bought and tried every math curriculum on the market, including but not limited to Singapore, Math U See, Saxon, Horizon, Bob Jones, Abeka, Rod and Staff, The Good and The Beautiful, Teaching Textbooks, Life of Fred, Right Start, Houghton Mifflin, Beast Academy, and Shormann. Whew.

The only one I truly hate is Saxon, which ironically is also the one we are currently using. I only hate it because it’s what I used as a kid and spent too many hours fantasizing about ways to burn it, but my kids seem to be thriving with it, so here we are (Mom, you can feel very vindicated right now).

If I had to pick my favorite combinations, it would be to use RightStart for the younger years (love that program). But it’s pretty teacher-intensive, so I like to use it alongside Rod&Staff which has very simple black-and-white consumable workbook pages. Perfect for days when you need to help the older ones more or you just can’t fit the raison d’etre RIghtStart in your day (seriously, the thing is a beast). Then for the older kids, I used to recommend Shormann, until I figured out that most teenagers can hack that thing with their eyes shut and get an “A” without actually learning a blessed thing. So now I prefer Nicole the Math Lady, who uses Saxon but actually explains everything like a normal person.

But my biggest piece of advice for the slow-hiking, Mt. St. Helen math kids, is to set a timer and scale. Acknowledge and praise them for the invisible rabbit burrows they’ve dug all through their brain. Encourage them that they are good at math (because they truly are). Set a timer for 60 min, and assign odds or evens. But don’t let them stay at camp happy-go-lucky. They really do need to get to a normal speed eventually. I mean, I don’t know what project engineers do when a bridge needs to be finished and everyone is waiting on them, but I imagine nobody is happy to sit around wasting money while their engineer gazes off into the distance making math connections. So at home, while you still have the chance, make some achievable goals for speeding up and pushing themselves a little.

Easy + One is what I always say.

And hug a kid who says they hate math, chances are they will eventually love it.

3 Things Every Homeschooling Mom Needs

A good printer that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg in ink.
A laminator that won’t “eat” your beautiful school stuff.
A shoe organizer repurposed as a flashcard holder so all the kids can find what they need.

No lie, I think I love my printer more than I like some of my friends (I kid, I kid), but sometimes I feel like I need to put “Marked Safe From My Laminator”. That thing is going to be the death of me. I love it dearly but I never know when it’s going to mess up and destroy something…usually something I printed in color at Office Depot and drove over an hour to pick up. So if anyone has any suggestions for a laminator they love, please tell me. I need to break up with mine (It’s me, not you dear laminator, I promise…ahem). The shoe organizer was a brilliant stroke of genius (aka, I saw it on Pinterest). I probably need to get a new one, because this one is looking a little like it’s had a few too many late nights and days in the sun…or rather moved multiple times and been handled by dozens of children. But it’s lasted years and it’s one thing in our homeschool life we use constantly. I probably need two at this point.

What mom homeschooling things am I missing?

Homeschool laminator Classical Conversations Latin Henle

Teaching Kids How To Learn

Sometimes I feel like Wendy with the lost boys around here. Homeschooling on most days feels like a battle, but somehow we tarry on. One of the main reasons I chose Classical Education was because it focuses on teaching kids how to learn, instead of what to learn. Sounds great, but turns out teaching a house full of wild boys how to learn, is way easier said than done. If you’ve hung around Classical education circles at all, then you’ve read or heard about Dorothy Sawyer’s essay titled “The Lost Tools Of Learning”. (it’s a quick read and I highly recommend it). In it, she basically does her version of “Back in the good ol days…”. But I’ll admit, it’s a compelling if laughably unattainable goal. I first read it when my kids were in diapers, and so incredibly naively optimistic that I mentally raised my hand and said “Yes! Pick me! Let’s do this!”. She’s a very persuasive lady. Ahem.

Then I had one boy after the other who struggled with writing, reading and everything in between…basically poster children for those who do NOT do Classical education. My personality gravitates more naturally to the Charlotte Mason school of thought (and I still like it in theory and intuitively teach that way), but I was too unstructured of a mom to use it well. Classical Conversations is where we ended up, which is like the McDonald’s of the Classical education world. Franchised and systematized. Not going to lie though, it’s been a struggle. Nothing about homeschooling has come easy. When one of my kids memory-mastered for the first time, it was a whole ordeal. The kind of ordeal that includes blood, sweat, and tears. I googled ways to make things stick, I sat with him for hours, we tried all of the tricks. Over the years I’ve read enough books to fill a library on how to utilize working memory, how to work with kids with dyslexia, apraxia, auditory processing disorder, ADHD etc. One of these days maybe I’ll write my own curriculum with all of the things I’ve picked up from a hundred therapists, books, and research, but for now… if anyone feels like they try to explain a concept to their child a dozen times and it’s not sticking, or if you’re in CC and have a kid who is struggling to memorize their grammar work, here are a few things that work around here.

Flashcards with stick figures and pictures. This was the game-changer last year. Last year I had to sit down and figure out where all of the holes and struggles were and then make up silly mnemonics and draw them onto flashcards or whiteboards. The three rules are: It has to be colorful. It has to be silly/funny. It has to be IN and ON the words themselves and not above it or beside it (i.e. “The Progressive Era” gets turned into a car with a giant ear riding on it).
Laminate things that need to be memorized. Homeschooling moms are like Monica Gellar when it comes to laminators. We will laminate anything. We love laminating. It’s more satisfying than picking dried glue off your hands. Add some wine and a few friends and it’s my ideal party. Laminating memory work was the game changer this year. Then my kids can take it outside, on a skateboard, in the mud, in the shower or in a box with a fox. Since my kids are all super active, this is really what made a difference. Once kids learn how to memorize, everything in life becomes easier (and not just school things, it’s like their working memory and prefrontal cortex can function a lot better across the board).
Cross the mid line. With younger kids you can do this with hand motions. With older kids, you either have to sit down with them and learn a bunch of Fortnite dance moves, or do those hand slappy things… or bribe them. Whatever the case, taking a drink of water then breaking memory work into moves that cross the mid line really works. And don’t ask me why the water thing is really important, but it’s a scientific thing. Those youtube kids yoga videos work great too. It’s like it unlocks something and the right brain and left brain stop fighting each other and start working together.

I’m so proud of my kids and their small victories. I remember when my oldest finally figured out how to teach himself things and it’s almost better than the moment a kid is truly potty trained…almost.

We’re still in the trenches though.

3 Different Ways to Get Your Kids Off Of Electronics

I actually shouldn’t be writing about this, I should be reading about this. Somewhere in my desire to not raise legalistic kids, we developed an electronics addiction in this house. It’s bad, as in I probably need a step by step AA level-esque game plan to kick the habit that doesn’t include never using electronics, and isn’t full of inspirational quotes. I need it to be practical and pragmatic. Does it exist?

In the meantime, this is what works thus far.

Put them to work. Trying to lure my children off of electronics never works. All of their toys are boring, there’s nothing to do and it feels like they sort of wade through life waiting for the next opportunity to get on electronics…even if that’s five days away. But if I assign mopping the floor, scrubbing the toilet and raking leaves in the backyard, they all do their jobs and then magically find plenty of things with which to entertain themselves.
Play by yourself. Adults don’t usually sit on the floor in a batman mask and start building a giant zoo out of magnatiles and play animals. So when we do sit on the floor and start playing with toys, it’s like catnip. The same mom radar that allows babies to sense when a parent is trying to lay them down in a crib, is still alive and kicking at the older ages. If you build it, they will come. Good luck trying to sneak away.
Turn off the router. Preferably have your husband turn off the router remotely from an app for the best Deus Ex Machina effect. If they start to read the instruction manual for the router, crawl under the house to see if the Cat5 cable is still intact, and hypothesize with each other on ways to fix the internet, then at least they’re getting language arts, PE and Socratic discussions done.