Kicking Off Week 2 of Pandemic Homeschool

I thought I’d have a lot more to say today. This week we were to start receiving more learning materials from the schools, and we were going to try a tag-team approach to the home schooling so I could get more work done. But actually, there doesn’t seem to be much to report. I guess the new becomes normal pretty fast. Here’s our new normal, as of Monday, March 23.

Curriculum

The girls had all weekend to finish the somewhat over-ambitious work I set out for them on Friday. They actually spent almost as much time on homework as I did on freelance work over the weekend. We meant to have a whole-family curriculum meeting on Sunday afternoon, but none of us could face the prospect.

So we started Monday morning with a family sit-down to run through the Friday list and see what was done, what needed more work, and what to do next.

The girls both took notes as we went, so for the time being, we abandoned the dry erase board. I’ll probably find another use for it soon.

Home School High School

Naviance

Naviance is a college planning website. Every student at my daughter’s high school has an account, and there are a bunch of tasks they are required to complete. Parents are supposed to be able to use it, too, but I’ve never been able to get it set up. So we looked at it together, printed out her completed “personal strengths” survey, and identified her resume as the next task. She already has a resume, but will update it according to the guidelines in Naviance this week.

English

Her English teacher sent out a link to a short story in the New Yorker that they are going to have a remote seminar on later this week. Unfortunately the link didn’t work. So she spent 45 minutes reading Rainbow Rowell’s book Carry On, which was to have been the topic of discussion at Ada’s Technical Books‘ young teen book club this month.

History

She turned in the history essay “Has the #MeToo Movement Helped Women of Color?” I read it, and I had some criticisms (repetitive, conclusions not always tightly linked to data), but she did good research and made good points.

Her history teacher posted new work on Schoology, but the teen was looking in the wrong folder when we planned her work for today. She’ll add those assignments to her work plan tomorrow.

PE

Her PE teacher sent a menu of activities that overlapped a lot with her normal home stretching routine and the off-ice workout her figure skating coach sent. I left it to her to decide how to integrate it all. Throughout the day she took breaks to stretch, do pushups, and go outside to jump rope.

Geometry

She did another page from the geometry packet. She didn’t ask me for help, but based on the muttering I heard all the way in my office, it was a hard one.

Theater Tech

Her theater tech class is effectively canceled for the year. But since she still loves musical theater, I had her choose from the list of streaming musicals she found over the weekend. She started watching a high school production of Into the Woods, taking notes on how they designed and managed the sets.

It’s really long, so she’ll spend a couple days on it.

Drivers Ed

Since she hasn’t been driving much, she and her dad picked a route she’s familiar with – to the ice rink and back – for afternoon driving practice. Turns and wheel control were practiced in the rink parking lot. Apparently there was a rolling stop into a right turn at a red light that caused friction. They both came home stressed and crabby.

Fifth Grade

Science

We reviewed all the materials from her science teacher. She tried to do Mystery Science lesson #4. But she couldn’t find a worm in the yard, so she couldn’t complete it. Instead she did a “Science 180” worksheet from the packet. It was more questions about food chains.

Math

Over the weekend there were two new videos from her math teacher. One came with an activity, and the other was a “Read Aloud” that they just watch. She watched them both, but didn’t do any of the work for the second activity video. Instead she did one of the coloring sheets (they are color by numbers where the number is the answer to a simple arithmetic problem). I reminded her that we are still following her teacher’s math deadlines and she needs to finish the video activity by Tuesday noon.

Literacy & Social Studies

Her teacher sent home a bunch of short readings with related worksheets that we kind of ignored last week. Today she did a reading on Malala, and answered the questions. She got frustrated with the geography app I found last week, so she found another one to try. She also traced the blank map and quizzed herself to see how many states she could label. She’s getting there, but has a way to go. She continued to read Caddie Woodlawn.

Home

Driver’s ed cut into free time (which I think the teen spent watching Into the Wood anyway) which gave the fifth grader a rare shot at the Switch. Since school ran so late, I didn’t have a big house project for them today. But I did ask them to put up some clothes and tidy their bedrooms for a few minutes before dinner.

Freelance

I don’t know if they asked their dad for lots of help today or if they are getting used to working independently. But today felt more like a normal work day. I did final edits to the article that was due today before turning it in. I completed a first draft of an article that is due on Wednesday.

I got one of three interviews for this week scheduled, and prepped questions for all of them. I also prepped for my regular Wednesday editorial call, spent a bit of time on this blog, and planned out my next couple days of work.

COVID Count

According to the Washington Department of Health, King County has 1170 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 87 related deaths as of March 23.