Manitoba mom's tickle trunk inspires learning at home throughout pandemic

For the past few months ofthe pandemic, a rural Manitoba momhas been getting dressed up in a costume everyday.

Janice Friesen has been literally getting into different characters while also wearing a teacher's hat to deliver daily lesson plans at home during the COVID-19 crisis.

Much like tens of thousands of Manitoba parents and guardians, the first three days of trying to get her five-year-old son to sit down to do schoolwork at their family home in the small community of Neubergthal, Man., located 93 kilometres south of Winnipeg, was a struggle.

On the fourth day, Friesen decided to try something different to hold her son's focus, she said to host Emily Brass during a phoneinterview on CBC's Radio Noon on Friday.

"When I'm dressed up, I'm the teacher," she told him, "and he went along with it."

His attitude flipped when they got the costumes involved.

"It made a big difference, at first, anyway," she said.

For the next 50 days, she transformed into the likes of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, Cruella De Vilof Disney's 101 Dalmationsand Napoleon Dynamite of the 2004 comedy.

Friesen had only planned to do it for a couple of weeks while under the impression the closures would end soon. When in-school classes were suspended indefinitelyin March, and then extended until the end of the school year, she just kept going with it.

She started each morning by handingthefirst assignments out to her son and older daughter. While they were busywith school stuff, she got ready.

Dressing up

Friesen spent five minutes to an hour getting ready each day. Sometimes, it was just a wig and a pair of shoes. Other times it was a fullmakeover and she had to be resourceful.

Her family's tradition of themed gatheringshave finally paid off, she said, as she already had most of the garb and random supplies in her possession.

WATCH | CBC's Holly Bernierspeaks withJanice Friesenabout why she decided to don a new look each day:

Manitoba mom mom dresses up as new character each day to motivate children

4 years ago

Duration 2:57

Janice Friesen of Neubergthal, Man., makes at-home learning more fun with her tickle trunk.

The idea of coming up with a new costumeand figuring out how to put it all togethermade things both fun and challenging for her. Friesen watched online tutorials to learn new hairstyles and makeup tricks that she had never tried before.

"It was just kind of fun to challenge myself with something I didn't think I could do."

One day, after applying foundation and painting over her eyebrows, the effect reminded her husband of a Star Trek character, and she jumped on the idea.

"I was like, done.I'm going to Google Star Trek characters and see if I can do this," she said, and that led to her dressing up as Data.

For an Avatar costume, Friesen said the blue paint was made using eyeshadows and eyeliner.

Making the best of tough times

To begin with, none of Friesen's familywere too thrilled about home-schooling.

On thatfirst day of getting into costume, Friesen'solder daughter asked her"why do you look like that?"

Eventually both kidsgot into it, too, and sometimes they even would even partakein getting into quirky getup along with their mother.

"I wasn't really excited to do teaching, and they weren't excited to be at home," she said.

"But I'm always telling my kids that happiness is a choice, and that our attitude doesn't have to be determined by our circumstances, and so I do my best to model that for my kids," she said.

"It gave me something to look forward to everyday," she said.

Friesen hopes her childrenwill look back and remember this as being fun, instead of missing their teachers, peers andregular classroom activities.

"This is less than ideal but I want them to have good memories, not sad or like bad ones."