Such a lovely social Zoom call this morning with some TimeBankers. It was really nice and I tried running break out rooms for the first time. It’s where you can put participants into rooms (e.g. of 2 or 3 people in each) -either manually assign who goes with who or let zoom do it automatically… then participants can only see who is in their room. Great to get more people talking together than if everyone is on the main call the whole time! I wanted to try it out as I have plans for a Zoom Quiz Night in 2 weeks… and teams will need to be able to discuss answers in breakout rooms without others hearing. It worked really well today with participants finding out about each other and things they had in common. We’ll use it in all our social calls I think as it’s less intimidating for people than speaking in a big group. If you like the sound of a Zoom Quiz night it will be Saturday April 18th @ 8pm NZ time: register here. 🙂
Prior to the Zoom call I did some Body Combat training with Les Mills online and a bit of facebook scrolling. Saw disturbing stats: now over a million people who have or have had corona virus globally and death rates in Spain, Italy and the US are quickly increasing. I am very relieved to be in NZ where the government has acted swiftly and made some big calls to keep us (and our health system) safe.
I like seeing the cool things people are sharing in lock-down, from online choirs (go Jo!) to photos of themselves when they were little (Danish trend). I’m kind of over the ‘I spy with my little eye something in your camera roll that is blue’ etc…. especially when I can’t find anything in my camera roll that is blue (or orange or pink)! It’s all very green, yellow and brown with a bit of white in there! I have enjoyed the daily photo challenges on our school staff group though (thanks Jenn- are there more to come?)- people sharing pictures of water/ black and white pic/ food they’ve eaten etc.
The best thing I saw today was ‘Family Lockdown Boogie’ from Wellington – really clever and catchy and so kiwi!
Gotta love it eh?
While I’m writing about what I’ve seen online here are some other online gems you may enjoy during lockdown…
- Les Mills online fitness classes (100 available for free at the moment)
- New Zealand Children’s Stories read aloud – e.g. Hairy McLeary (a kiwi favourite) and Not for Children stories read aloud too – for young adults. (This would be good for the Danes out there who want their kids/ teenagers to improve their English. Input, input, input!)
- All sorts of good stuff on the RNZ website (also podcasts)… for those interested in science check out Elemental – a journey through the Periodic Table, and Nanogirl’s Great Science Adventures
- How’s your knowledge of NZ history? RNZ have created the Aotearoa History Show – you can get each episode as a podcast or even better watch it (both options on the link). Most of us didn’t get taught much NZ history in school so this is an awesome way to get your head around some really important, fundamental stuff.
- The podcast I listen to most is Krista Tippet’s On Being. The onbeing.org website has audio, essays, poetry etc. Use the Starting Points section to find something that interests you. Topics include: A care package for uncertain times, Hope is a muscle, Living together in disagreement, wisdom for the everyday etc.
- Online quizzes can help build up your knowledge of the world: try this quiz where you have to name every country in the world as fast as you can.. if you are like me you will be drawing a blank at the countries you can’t think of starting with M in Europe, missing a good chunk of Africa and wondering how there can be so many little countries in Central America!
- I haven’t had time yet but would love to see the world’s best art galleries and museums virtually- perhaps we might do it tonight on our Date Night (tv or board game only other likely option although I have fingers crossed for a massage!). Here’s a Guardian article about 10 virtual / interactive museum & art gallery tours.
- Check out this one stop shop Te Reo Māori site if you want to learn or improve your Māori language skills. ‘Toku Reo’ might be the place to start – 300 tv episodes that start with the basics and move through what is in Te Kakano – a book many kiwis will have used if they’ve ever learnt Māori.
- And when you want to know what’s going on in the world in terms of Covid 19 check out these well presented Covid-19 statistics
Feel free to share with me anything you’re pleased to have discovered during lockdown. This is also rather clever…
Haha I reckon you can probably guess which one I am!
It’s only mid afternoon here but I think I’ll wrap today’s post up there. I’m about to put my rye bread in the oven, then when it’s done I have my red dragon pie all prepped and ready to go in for dinner, along with some marrow to bake. I have a few TimeBank things I really need to cross off the to do list so I’ll get onto those now … and then it will be date night 🙂
Tomorrow we are planning to set up a mini golf course – inside and outdoors, any tips? I hope to do lots of baking as well. Yeeeha! Fun times. 🙂