#StayAtHome: Journals by children amid the COVID-19 pandemic - Blog 1

Hello everyone. Starting today, we invite you to discover a mini-series of blogs written by children for children.
As experts recommend staying at home these days to protect each other, children tell us about how they spend their time indoor, what worries them and what helps them. Many thanks to the Children's Board for the blogs!

Today I realized how much I got lost in the things I had to prepare for school, forgetting what made me smile and gave me energy when I was little. I started again making origami, flowers, more specifically, because it’s the season of rebirth and, we need to bring some colors 😁 into this chaos. Origami stimulates creativity and the sense of beauty, always bringing smiles to the faces of those who try it, when they see the final result!
You can find a lot of tutorials on YouTube, how to make daisies, tulips, roses, smiles and hyacinths, that you can offer in a small bouquet to your mother! 😁 Also, if you have special sheets for quilling, that is an extraordinary activity that stimulates meticulousness and love for details, it is an art!
Moreover, I remembered my "secret" passions, sitting in front of the computer and writing, as I used to.

Outbursts, short prose, texts that are born of out of what I feel and the need to express myself.
Sometimes we feel that no one can understand us, that some do not have time to listen to us, so the best refuge is sometimes your own person! :) Free your emotions, put your thoughts on a piece of paper or in a document on your computer! And, hey, maybe this will be the start of a desire to write more often! People need to hear you, by any means possible!
 

Although in the past years I intended to take a reading challenge, and now seems the right time to tick a few books on the list, I prefer to use this free time to review my materials for school and to finish my homework.

But I also want to take time for myself and do some things that I have postponed in the last few months, things forgotten in the agenda, such as watching documentaries or reading the the DoR magazine update - a multi-season newsletter, which recently evoked COVID-19 (Pandemic Journal), to listen to more podcasts or a Ted Talk and, even though I can't leave the house, I try to get out of my comfort zone by learning more about topics that I am passionate about, but about which I don't feel I know as much as I want to.

Speaking about books, I would recommend to everyone Educated. It has been included in the recommendation lists of many people I admire and has received countless awards. The story is about Tara - a young woman struggling to escape the brutality of her childhood and her family and the only weapon she has is education. The book reminded me to pay more attention to the people around me, but also to me, it taught me about compassion, truth and the weight of choosing between yourself and anyone else, about the strength of blood ties and about how to break a toxic circle.

And because the online environment has become part of the reality in the last week because of the virus, several museums have virtual tours on their websites. Plays can also be watched online. And I certainly don't want to miss this! Even if I try as much as possible to stay away from devices and social media, I check daily the latest news about COVID-19 from relevant sites and take the recommended protection measures.