Monday: social isolation day 3, homeschooling day 1

Well, we survived the day.  The day went fine.

Here are the things that didn't go so well:
1. I wasn't quite as prepared as I 'needed' to be.  There were several, "uh, I need to you wait ten minutes while I try to figure this out."
2. Joshua missed having as much Mom time as normal and mentioned it several times.
3. Getting anything else done around the house.
4. Sending Joshua outside without the correct cold weather gear.
5. Trying to teach life skills while doing other work.

Here are the things that went fine:
1. Working on stuff for Hope while directing the boys.  It was only an hour, and they had several questions during that time, but it was doable.  I was slightly distracted from everything, but it worked.
2. Most of the 'subjects' for both boys.  They would be better with improvement but let's not be too hasty.

Art

Morning work

stop motion

Spanish (Duolingo)

Sensory (oobleck)

3. Time management for the whole day.  The boys did their chores before dinner because they were bored and were hoping for more screen time after dinner.  It worked out for them a little bit.  Joshua had to refill all of our emergency/freezer water and made some kind of game from it.

Here are the things that went well:
1. The schedule.  Oh, that worked so well.  Isaac had cut his items out before I woke up.  They loved going to look at seeing what they were supposed to do next.  Tomorrow's schedule has already been arranged.

Here are the other notes:
1. Isaac's life skill was cleaning the fish tank.  He did not enjoy it and wanted to know why he had to learn it because he might never have a fish.   Joshua's life skill was sorting the laundry into pilles for different people.
2. Both boys got out new Lego sets and it was a good break while still being part of the schedule.  Isaac is using one to make a stop motion video and Joshua and I are doing one during 'mom's choice.'
3. We followed the normal routine of screen time/rest time after lunch and then finished the few items we had left.  I thought it worked well.
4. For gym Isaac had to run to the end of the cauld-e-sac twice.  I thought this would take him about fifteen minutes.  Instead it took him about five.  I didn't watch him, but I'll assume he was going to the right place.  Tomorrow I'll up it to three times because it obviously wasn't hard enough.

Sunday: social isolation - day 2

Today went better than yesterday.  I'm not really sure why.

I'm all ready for tomorrow.  The kitchen table has been cleaned off.  The white board was brought upstairs.  I decided that Joshua gets to have school every day too, because I don't think I can do one child with school and one without, especially on the days I need to work too.

While I've seen all kinds of schedules floating around on Facebook, I'm taking a slightly different approach.  I've made a list of the things that 'need' to be done.  We'll cut them out tomorrow and they can choose the order.  Obviously, I can take out things or change the order a bit if needed...recess needs to happen at the same time for both boys.  I can't help two children at once, etc.  This gives them some control while still having a rhythm to the day.  If they finish early, they finish early and can enjoy free time.  If it takes them forever, then it takes them forever.

I especially like how both of them felt the need to write on their papers.

Saturday: social isolation - day 1

Well, today didn't really go as well as I would have liked.  I'm not sure it went poorly, but...yeah.  It was a normal Saturday for us in that we didn't go anywhere.  (Right?  We should be prepared for this.)  But things just didn't quite click.

We did play a bomb game this morning that involved Isaac and Joshua hiding 'bombs' in the office.  Ben or I diffused them and then hid them by the kids.  I didn't think it was that fun, but it also wasn't very demanding.  The kids played it for quite some time so they must have enjoyed it.

Joshua enjoyed bird watching this morning with some new binoculars.  He was very concerned that I hadn't filled up the bird feeder two minutes after he mentioned it.

Also, Happy Pi day!  Isaac had circle homework all week that I don't think he's enjoying, but really should be pretty easy.  We had pizza and pie for dinner.

Friday: preparation

Well, life has gone a bit crazy. 

Isaac has had classes canceled for the next three weeks (after which he has one week of spring break).  He thinks that the next three weeks are going to be fun because he doesn't have to go to school.  I think his expectations will quickly change.

We started errands by getting some more cat food.  We got it a little earlier than normal, but not that much earlier.  The carts were a bit smaller, and Joshua noted that he's growing up because he can push the cart around.

Then we went to Meijer.  The toilet paper is all gone, based on the the nationwide phenomena of buying toilet paper even when you don't need it.  At 10:30am most of the ramen was also sold out as was most of the ground beef and quite a bit of pasta.

We stocked up on a lot of important things like donuts.  I have been planning on making a lot of freezer meals next week, so I did have a large amount of groceries but I was also trying to stock up on a few things.

The biggest problem was the checkout.  The line when around the corner and halfway to the back of the store.  I overheard some employees saying that it was worse than Christmas.  (But really, what did everyone expect?  The recommendations are to buy 2-3 weeks worth of groceries and the schools are about to close.)  My shop and scan app wasn't working.  Oh, what a day for it to not work!  I restarted the phone.  That didn't work.  I uninstalled and reinstalled the app and that finally worked.  Phew!  So I really probably only spent an extra five minutes in the store.

Thursday: remote teaching

Today I figured out a few of the last things I needed for remote teaching after spring break.  That being said, it may be difficult making sure everyone's technology works.  What if one student can't hear?  Will the two students that are having problems getting excel to work reliably on their computer figure it out before class?  (I gave them several options, but still...)  What will happen that I'm just not expecting?

I also decided to forgo trying to teach Microsoft Access completely and will expand on Excel instead.

We've also been getting a lot of emails about COVID-19, as I'm sure anyone who is reading this has also experienced.  Some of them are useful, like church, school, and the karate dojang.  However, I do not need to know that my banks and PetSmart are using through cleaning procedures.  I really just expect that.  I only really need to know if it isn't business as mostly normal and even then, I don't really need to know but would understand the email.

Wednesday: COVID-19

Well, it was a day surprisingly full of COVID-19 talk.

*I went to my karate lesson.  We talked about it there and how it would affect the school.
*I sent a bunch of emails about computers/excel.
*I went to pick up Joshua and the ladies at the front desk were talking about how they can't get any hand sanitizer.
*I got an email from Hope College announcing that classes are canceled tomorrow and will be on-line for the three weeks after Spring Break.
*I dealt with the help session that was supposed to happen tonight (and did, for half the normal time).
*I tried to figure out what my plan is for tomorrow to optimize class planning and the fact that Isaac only has a half day of school.  I have a rough outline, but it's still rather up in the air.  I was really hoping for one more class period to try out a few more things on Google Meet, but I guess I'll just wing it when students come back.  I think I've figured out my problem, but it was only a problem when there were a bunch of people in the meeting and that's rather hard to replicate.

Tuesday: crow bar, conferences

Yesterday Ben was trying to show Joshua what a [Lego] crow bar was.

Ben: what does this part kind of look like?
Joshua: a crow
Ben: What does this part look like?
Joshua: a bar
Ben: if you put them together, what do you get?
Joshua: a crar.

**********************************************
We had Isaac's parent-teacher conferences today.  Mostly good things, as expected.  He's at a level N in reading, which is where he's supposed to be the beginning of third grade...so he's pretty normal with that.  Math is still going well.  He talks and interacts with other students well, but hasn't really made any 'always' friends.  While we wish that was a little different, he does play with other students at recess sometimes.  The biggest issue he has is writing.  If he has plenty of time he does fine, but sometimes he needs to get his thoughts down on paper faster.  There could be lots of reasons for this, but no matter what the reason he needs to do a better job.