Homeschool Week One

Okay, I posted yesterday about some of the preparation leading up to our first week of the kids being home from school, Sam working from home full-time, and me being on leave from the library.

I'd come up with a basic schedule, and we were ready to get started the first full day the kids were home (Wednesday, March 18th). Lots of people online had lots of opinions about this apparently, basically none of which were helpful. What was helpful was messaging with one of my friends who normally homeschools and talking to other parents who were also adjusting from elementary-aged kids in public school to a month (soon to be more) of homeschooling/distance learning at home.

I decided to go ahead and start right away for several reasons: 1) because I decided to intentionally limit the amount of school I was asking the kids to do each day to about a third of the work that the school sent home, 2) because it seemed like a way to restore some kind of normalcy to a frankly scary and chaotic time, and 3) because I thought this would work best for our particular family situation, including one kiddo who does very, very poorly with changes to routine and another who requires a great deal of academic support at school.

The first day, I took several pictures throughout the day and then the Ridgeway parent-teacher facebook page posted a prompt asking for photos of kids' working at home, and it was fun to see (and show the kids) the pictures of their classmates working away at home. I decided it might be nice to keep up the photo documentation.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I had a bonus 3-month old that I was watching for my friend's last day of at-work work because her daycare had closed. Leah was mostly left to her own devices. Notice the (purely decorative) bandaid on her forehead.

Each of the kids did 30 minutes on the computer for ST Math, which is the app they use at school.

Here's Leah again, still with the bandaid.

Pointing. 

More mischief.

I did 30 minutes of math in the morning with both kids, and Sam did 30 minutes of Language Arts with both kids in the afternoon. (Like I said in the last post, we're shooting for 1 hour of total instruction per day per kid, and then there are things - like the math app, independent reading, and journaling - that they can do on their own as part of the routine for a total of 2-2.5 hours of "school" per day.)

The baby, kids, and I took a walk in the (light) rain after lunch.

I wanted to get a picture of Amelie in her rain gear.

James is supposed to write 3 sentences and draw a detailed picture in his journal each day and Amelie's supposed to write a page. 

Thursday
It was not raining for our post-lunch walk on Thursday, and Sam got to come with us (and then he's come every day since that first day).

We walked down to our neighborhood park.

Carrying the big kid without the carrier!

Journal-writing and snack in the afternoon.

We haven't been letting Spark go in the backyard (he's looking sad about it here). With all the rain, it's a gigantic muddy mess, and with us being home all the time he gets plenty of walks.

Just look at that head full of curls!

Sam and Amelie doing Language Arts (etc.) in the afternoon.

Friday
The theme of Friday's homeschool was lots and lots of various Pokemon games (mental math!)

James got Dad to play with him, too.

We did our after-lunch walk and it was COLD - we wore our winter coats.

This is how Leah helps to make the bed for the "chores" portion of the schedule.

James took it upon himself to create a Pokemon knockoff type game while I was working with Leah. He'd accomplished a lot by the time I took this picture. 

Here he is with the cards he made.

Amelie had THREE zoom meetings set up for Friday. She took the first one on the couch with Leah and James on the sidelines, then we couldn't get the second one to work, and then the third one she took in bed. They were mostly just socializing and getting to see her classmates and teacher after being off and practicing how this would work when they come back to "regular" distance learning after break.

I must say that all the meetings somewhat disrupted our schedule/routine that we had set up, though it really does just include the basic things I want them to get to throughout the day and they did still get to them.

All the kids in Amelie's class were issued iPads at the beginning of the year, and one of her teachers set up her Zoom account on the tablet and showed her how to use it on that hectic last day. Amelie was miffed that I wouldn't let her eat during the meeting. Gotta follow proper teleconferencing etiquette.

I'm thankful that they're such good independent readers and that they were more than willing to read basically all morning. Sam's been thankful that he doesn't have to wake anyone up in the morning and rush them through breakfast and out the door.