What Our Family Did Last Year: 365 Ways We Learned, Played, and Connected During Covid-19

One Year in the Time of Covid-19

The date this post is published, March 12, 2021, marks exactly one year since our lives were upended by the COVID-19 virus. On March 12, 2020, we received notice that our governor was closing schools for the remainder of the month. Obviously, we had no idea what was to come, but as I watched and read endless hours of news coverage in those first couple of weeks, I could see that life was going to change drastically, and not just for a few weeks. Now, a year out, I’m looking back at what our family did last year.

Coming up on the one-year anniversary of COVID life, I sat down to think about the ways our family played, learned, and connected with each other, and those outside our family, over the past year.

Why Make This List At All

Unless you journal regularly, you likely don’t remember much of the details of the past year. Between the stress of the past year, and my natural forward focus in my thinking, I don’t recall most of what happened last week, let along last year.

Making a list of positive ways our family enjoyed each other’s company, discovered something new, or encouraged someone around us helps me focus on gratitude. When I make a list this big (365 things is a lot to list), it also serves to slow down my thoughts from the warp speed that I operate in when scrolling social media or racing to check off the next thing on my to-do list.

One year of our lives is gone. I want to remember it. Thinking about how we spent it also helps me think about how I want to spend the next year.

So, here is a sampling of what our family did last year: 365 ways we played, learned, and connected meaningfully with each other and with others.

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How Our Family Played Last Year

We went on walks, played games, watched movies, read books together. I took a child with me on an errand and we stopped for smoothies one day. We had fun and made the best of the closures and restrictions that severely curtailed our spring, summer, and then fall and winter plans.

Nana came over early in the morning to hide Easter eggs in our backyard for the kids to have an Easter egg hunt. We watched the Perseid meteor shower snuggled in sleeping bags on the trampoline. We raced across a field, walked around a pond, and sledded down a hill.

The abrupt slowdown of our usual activities felt like time slowing down just a little bit. As my kids return to their normal extracurricular schedules, I treasure the time that we had in the past year to play together.

Getting Out of the House

Game Nights

We had family game nights, the kids played games together, they tried out Sudoku and learned to play poker.

(I’ve linked many of the games here to Amazon if you are interested in checking them out. By purchasing from Amazon after you click through my link, you will not be charged any extra, but I will receive a small commission from your purchase.)

Family Fun

Time was stretched. We had plenty of time to spend with all five of us together, time for the kids to play with each other, and time for them to pursue things they personally enjoyed.

What We Watched

No doubt about it, our screen time went up this past year. At the end of December, I instructed the kids to set a New Year’s goal. It could be anything from a one-month goal to a year-long goal. My youngest promptly told me her goal was to watch every episode of Phineas and Ferb! But it wasn’t all bad. Between Netflix, Prime, Kanopy, and YouTube, we found a lot to love. This list is mostly documentaries that we enjoyed, but we filled in with plenty of Disney+ classics and new releases!

Our family favorite was Lost in Space and the kids are eagerly awaiting the promised Season 3!

How Our Family Learned Last Year

Having hours and hours and days and days of free time meant I had time to teach the kids life skills, encourage them to read for hours, or try a new hobby. By deciding to homeschool for this school year, we opened up additional free time the kids wouldn’t have had otherwise. My time was less free, but it’s been so worth it.

The list of things included here are not so much traditional “school learning,” but things we learned as part of participating in family life or exploring areas of interest.

Life Skills

Here are a few of the things one or more of the kids worked on over the past year.

Learning for Fun and Interest

We all learned a lot in the past year. Everyone had the opportunity to explore areas of interest and try something new. The kids learned a little about a lot of things, and a lot about themselves. I tried lots of small new things, a few big new things, and learned a whole lot too.

Podcasts We Listened To

We spent a lot less time in the car in the past year, which is our usual podcast listening time, but we found that we enjoyed listening to podcasts while making dinner sometimes. The kids also liked listening to a podcast while they colored or played with something else.

Here are some of the podcasts we listened to in the past 365 days.

Books We Read

We did a lot of reading (some of us more than others). I read books to the kids, they read to themselves and each other. We listened to audio books, and I snuck in a page here and there whenever I could. Here are some of the books we got through in the past 365 days.

(I’ve linked the books if you’re interested in checking them out on Amazon. By purchasing after you click through my link, you will not be charged any extra, but I receive a small commission from your purchase.)

How Our Family Connected Last Year

Over the past year of staying home, with schools, churches, and classes shut down for a significant period of time, staying connected was challenging for a lot of us. Our family enjoyed the time together, but we also got irritable and grumpy with one another after weeks on end of the kids not getting to see anyone but their siblings.

Technology opened up new ways to connect with friends, and we learned to give each other needed space. People came up with creative ways to stay in touch, and we found little ways to encourage connection through letting friends and family know we were thinking of them.

Here’s a sampling of what our family did last year to stay connected.

What Our Family Did Last Year

Everyone says 2020 was a dumpster-fire, a nightmare of epic proportions, and it was. But it was also a time for our family to hop off our hamster wheel and take a breath. We had less opportunities to travel and go to fun places, but more opportunities to make each other laugh, eat dinner together, and learn valuable life lessons.

We are slowly returning to our former pace of life. The kids are back in classes five nights a week, so dinners together are fewer these days. Already the intensity of feeling from a year ago is fading, like all my memories, and it feels more dreamlike than real.

I need the words on a page (or a screen) to bring me back to the day my kids played Monopoly all the way to the end, the night we stayed up late watching both Incredibles movies, or we looked through a scope to see more stars than any planetarium show could ever paint on a ceiling.

Here’s to playing, learning, and connecting for another year. And remembering.

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What Our Family Did Last Year