Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Tuesday: survived

 Well, I felt a low level of stress all day.

We were running a minute or two late and then Isaac's computer was SOO slow and then it wouldn't let us join his morning video call.  He had several other technology problems throughout the morning too.  I'm pretty sure once we figure out all the places to put stuff and get stuff we'll be fine, but getting started is difficult.  He also had to post a picture of his spelling before he was allowed to leave a video call, but the instructions needed access approval for some reason so I had no idea how to do it.  The teacher walked us through it (and I realized I had the app on my phone), but ugg.

Joshua's stuff went smoothly.  I'm totally on board with how she organizes stuff, but again, there aren't quite as many different websites that Joshua needs.  So it isn't quite comparing apples to apples.

At 'real' work I gave a small exam.  It went much better than last time, at least in the number of questions during it.  There was one student who stressed me out a little bit for some odd reasons, but we managed.

Isaac did some spelling tonight, after we reviewed some rules for long A and short a yesterday.  He spelled all the words correctly!  I'm not sure I've ever seen him spell so many correctly in a row.  I know it isn't a huge deal, but they also had a spelling assessment today and it was not so good.  (I don't know how many he was expected to get right though, as they seemed to get pretty long near the end.)  I'll take the little victories.




Monday, September 7, 2020

Monday: normal

 It was a rather normal day today.

We had cleaned the basement yesterday, so the boys had put up a running course (immediately).  This morning as I was coming out of the bedroom I saw Joshua run downstairs in his swimsuit.  Then he yelled up, asking where his water shoes were.  I had kind of been hoping to ignore the swimsuit, but couldn't quite ignore the water shoes.  They know they shouldn't go to the beach without at least telling us, either.

It turned out that Isaac was adding a water feature to the course, and so when Joshua was on a certain pillow he got wet.

It wasn't as sopping wet as I feared, but it was wet enough to put in the sun to dry.  The carpet was relatively dry.  We had a discussion (for what seems like the second or third time this week) about how water causes damage to stuff easily.  I'm not holding my breath that it has sunk in yet.

Saturday, September 5, 2020

Saturday: to do list

 This is what half of my to-do list looks like:

*Clean front porch
*Clean storage area
*Clean office

At this rate I might as well put on "clean the whole house" because it would get done about as quickly as the individual rooms.

Friday, September 4, 2020

Friday: out

Isaac has been wanting to go to a specific playground for a while.  He wasn't able to do it with the babysitter yesterday so we went this morning.  It was cool out, so we were all in long sleeves and long pants.

 


We haven't seen Ben much lately, but he invited us out for lunch.  It was the first time we've been to a restaurant for quite some time too.  There was a tornado warning practice, and Joshua thought about tornados the rest of the day.  I wouldn't say he was worried, but he wasn't not worried either.



Thursday, September 3, 2020

Thursday: made it

 I made it through the day.  It was a pretty easy day, but I'm now exhausted.  Isaac and Joshua both did a good job of figuring out what needed to be done in a few cases and just doing it.  It also helped that it was a short day and there wasn't any writing.

Wednesday: second day of school

Day 2 is in the books.

Kindergarten still went well.  Joshua had a bit more work than yesterday, but was still finished around 11.  He also made Grey Bear a hat to match his.


Isaac had a slightly more challenging time.  He had more work than yesterday, and there was a lot of writing.  He's slow at writing.  The non-writing parts went well, the writing parts were a struggle.  I'm also now talking with his teacher a bit about his spelling, because he's a bit behind.  It's a bit awkward, because I need to be involved more at a time I'd normally mostly let things run their course.  Everyone survived with minimal tears.  The teacher was also posting to-do items throughout the morning which felt awkward to me.  I think we need to change our way of thinking a bit and instead of following the to-do list she gives every day follow what is available and just make sure we've done everything at the end.

I even got the kitchen cleaned up.  Just in time for lunch, so it's a bit of a mess again, but at least the dishwasher was run.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Tuesday: first day of school

Welcome to the first day of school...at home.

Kindergarten went well.  Joshua was medium excited and all of his class stuff was well organized.  He needed help with the transitions, but that was expected.





Isaac's first day of  3rd grade went ok.  The assignments weren't quite as organized.  (There were a few times we were like, 'ok, he watched the video.  What is he supposed to do with that?')  There were a few links that didn't work either, although those got fixed pretty quickly.  To be fair, Isaac has more interesting websites that were used and classmates that can type, which fills up the chat window faster but also makes one page more cluttered.



The kitties enjoyed being back in the school room and honestly, made a small nuisance of themselves.  If it continues one or the other may be banished to a different room.  Oh, also shown is Isaac reading in our comfy cozy spot.


The chrome books were a bit annoying.  They go to sleep after about 30 minutes of inactivity and then you need to start everything over...any tabs that may have been opened are gone.  This only happened once today, but if it happens on a regular basis I might call the help desk and see if I can get it changed.  The chrome books were nice though in that they go right to a page with links.  We were also done around 10:45 (although Isaac had one more class at 11:45).  It was a bit earlier than I was hoping for, but it was also only the first day.  There's also no specials, so we might add some of those in ourselves.  I was able to get some work done, but it was rather interrupted.  I'm hoping Isaac will be able to eventually figure out a lot on his own, but I expect Joshua will continue to need help.  Which is fine, I just need to plan my work appropriately.

I'm expecting house work will suffer even more than it has in the last two weeks while I've been working.  As normal, I feel like I'm just adding things to my to-do list instead of actually doing them.