One Month of Pandemic Home School

Last Friday wrapped up the fourth week of pandemic homeschooling. Just when we thought we had a routine going, the schools came up with new systems based on the state’s new requirements for “continuous learning.” Since previous assignments were optional, most of the new schoolwork was covering old ground for the kids who kept up on academics all along. But it still gave us a taste for the potential workload. So week four was a lot about figuring out the new school system, but we had a few projects worth updating, too. Here’s how our first month of pandemic homeschooling wrapped up.

Continuous Learning – High School

For the continuous learning ordered by the state, my daughter’s high school came up with a home schedule of “bell times” intended to guarantee twice weekly contact with each subject. In theory, teachers would host digital lessons during their assigned times, even taking attendance. In practice, some of them had already established different schedules and others continued to assign work on Schoology with the intent that students would use the scheduled time to complete the work. Probably everyone will synch up with the new program after spring break.

How it Worked for Us

Even though nobody followed the schedule exactly, there were no scheduling conflicts and my daughter did have more “face time” with her teachers than she had previously. Because this was the first week of required schoolwork, most classes were retracing the assignments that she completed back when at-home learning was optional. This meant she mostly was organizing assignments, turning in old work, and confirming with her teachers that yes, in fact, she is ahead of the game. One of her teachers gave this rule of thumb “Expect to do about half as much work as you do during normal school.”

Her assessment is that so far the workload is half what her teacher said.  

The Plan Moving Forward

Even though I’m sure subsequent weeks will smooth many of the rough edges, it is still going to be two sessions/assignments per class per week once the program catches up with the work she’s done so far. That’s three fewer than I’ve been assigning her. So I know that going forward, I’ll need to keep generating work for her, especially in the classes where either the teacher is more laid back or she is particularly well-prepared.

That means for now we’ll stick with the teacher’s math assignments and the workout routine she’s already established. But I’m generating a supplementary history unit for her (more on that later but it’s super fun and I’m seriously proud of myself); I’m counting on her dad to generate a chemistry unit for her; and we’ll be assigning lots of extra reading to supplement her English class.

Home Theater

Before continuous learning, my daughter’s theater tech class had stopped completely. Since that was her fun class, the only one she freely chose for herself, I tried to fill it in with streaming options. First I had her take notes on the sets in a high school production of Into the Woods. Then we watched the National Theatre’s stream of One Man, Two Guv’nors, which was not as family-friendly as hoped. But even though the girls (and their parents) were uncomfortable with some of the humor, I did catch them referencing some of the less offensive gags in conversation over the next few days. In some ways, it seemed to stick with them more than some live experiences. So I counted that as a success.

Then we watched The Shows Must Go On stream of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That was a WTF experience that left everyone crabby and wondering how Andrew Lloyd Webber ever got famous in the first place. After that debacle I let them off the hook the next day and watched The Met’s stream of Norma by myself.

So I think my daughter was relieved that under the new schedule, her theater tech teacher has started assigning the class readings like “Lighting the Stage.”

Assigned Fifth Grade Work

My daughter’s three fifth grade teachers are a pretty tight unit and had basically already been doing what the state ended up requiring. So the work load didn’t change, but the schedule didn’t quite align with what we’ve been doing.

• MONDAY: Announcements and social-emotional check-in
• TUESDAY: Math lesson
• WEDNESDAY: ELA lesson
• THURSDAY: Science lesson
• FRIDAY: Math lesson follow up

So I told her to follow whatever deadlines her teachers give her, and if she runs out of work, to switch back over to my assignments.

Social Emotional Learning

She really doesn’t like the Mood Meter that forms the basis of her school’s SEL program, so I let her ignore those assignments in favor of continuing to work on Yale’s Science of Happiness Course. Both girls are completing the course one week behind me (I’m working ahead so I know how much to assign each day). They’ve established their “baseline happiness” and took the VIA personality strengths test. We all found our VIA results to be very validating. It’s obvious that your personality strengths would be the things you value in a person, but it still feels nice to be told “These things [that you value highly] define you.”  

The homework for this class is tracking behaviors like savoring an experience, feeling gratitude, connecting with others, and practicing random acts of kindness. I’m counting it towards their journaling requirement and allowing them to keep those notes private.

Art

What’s missing from the schedule is art, the most important subject for my daughter (a fact verified by her VIA assessment). Fortunately, I spent a whole day the previous week putting together a two week art unit. As part of an interview for a series of articles on Earth Day, I learned about the work of UK artist John Dyer and his Spirit of the Rainforest – Last Chance to Paint project.

I set up a 10-day plan where each day she would watch one video, read a blog post, examine one painting, and read a PowerPoint presentation followed by an assignment to either answer questions or make her own art.

Unfortunately, I forgot to attach the PowerPoint and then forgot to send her the assignment at all on Tuesday and Wednesday. So she read “Rainforest Unit” in her calendar and assumed it just meant “watch the next video.” I finally realized what I had done on Thursday and just sent her all the materials for the whole unit. By Friday she had caught up and made some really cool art.

And that’s how we finished our first month of homeschooling.

Covid Count

On Friday April 10, King County had reported 4,117 confirmed positive cases and 277 confirmed deaths from the pandemic.