LEARNING SOMETHING FUN AND NEW WITH YOUR EXTRA TIME

It is 10:15 in the morning on the first official day of spring break.

You're already bored.

You can't travel, hang with your friends, sit in your favorite coffee shop, or go to a movie. You can only sit in your room and watch YouTube videos of zoo animal babies and reruns of The Bachelor for so long.

What's a quarantined adolescent to do?

In just 15 minutes of perusing the internet, I was able to accumulate the following list of skills you can teach yourself using online videos or basic instructions. Some of these may require you to have access to some sort of materials or equipment (like a sewing machine or knitting needles), but many use only items you can find around your house.

For instance, you can learn how to:

• draw/paint/create art
• cook
• dance
• play an instrument
• juggle
• knit/crochet/sew
• play poker (ask your folks first!)
• play chess
• program (codeacademy.com)
• create Minecraft simulations
• Marie Kondo your house (again, check with your adult before throwing anything out)
• invest in the stock market
• do magic tricks

You could also take up digital photography (borrow a camera from someone in your house or just use a phone) or calligraphy if you can find a pen.

I know you're all "I'm on vacation! Give my brain a break!" but many of these skills or hobbies are a lot of fun, give you a creative outlet, can help you earn some extra cash, or could prove useful right about now. 

For instance, I have always wanted to learn how to be a better photographer, and each summer I haul my camera along on vacation and attempt to take beautiful landscape pictures. But I don't really know what I'm doing. Here's a picture I recently took at Lake Michigan. It's fine, I kind of like it. But what if I knew more about lighting? About how to frame a picture? Using the continuous shooting mode? Could I become an excellent photographer? With a lot of extra time on my hands, this might be a good time to find out.

What about cooking? I can cook, but what if I got creative with what's available in my fridge, freezer, and pantry so that our quarantine meals went from "this is what we've got" to "LOOK WHAT WE'VE GOT!" Who knows, you could become a Cordon Bleu chef and make your family super happy as you try out all sorts of great recipes. Or maybe you need to learn how to make more than just toast and peanut butter first.

Dr. Kelly was curious as to how students could learn how to invest in the stock market. First, there are plenty of articles to read and videos to watch, including many directed to teens. Another great way is to use a virtual stock market simulation game. You can find several at https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-virtual-stock-market-games-learn-invest/. FYI, these are just like the activities we used in my high school economics class, only we had to look the stock price up in the newspaper every day to see how we were doing, as opposed to our phones letting us know every second of the day whether or not we were making money. To give you an idea how long ago that was, I made my stock pick based on the popularity of Cabbage Patch dolls. Y'all can look that up and figure out the year.

What have you always dreamed of doing? Okay, not skiing or tennis, at least not right now, but that you can pick up watching a video, reading a blog, and doing in the safety of your own home? Share your dreams, goals, creations, and pictures so we can learn with you!

Til next time,

Ms. Nan