Pandemic Home School Diary Day 2

Before I had kids, I thought I would be a homeschooling mom. As soon as I had kids, I realized that wasn’t going to work. But thanks to the coronavirus, I find myself a reluctant homeschooler for at least the next six weeks. After giving my kids a long weekend, I started to institute a new, at-home school routing yesterday. It was fun and new and the kids liked it. Here’s how day 2 went.

Home School High School

History

My 15-year-old loves routines, so she jumped right in this morning. She checked Schoology and discovered an incomplete in her history class. She had been working in class on an assignment on Wednesday last week, but never got to turn it in since there was no class on Thursday. She started over, finished the assignment, and submitted it online, even though she doesn’t know whether the teacher is accepting work during the, um, break.

Geometry

Then she spend about 45 minutes on math. At first she was skipping problems she didn’t understand. But when we did our half-hour check-in, I reminded her that it wasn’t a test and she might as well stick with each problem till she figures it out. I reminded her that everything in the packet was covered in class before the break, so she just had to remember how to do it. She spent the rest of the time on the first problem she had skipped, and was super proud of herself for finally figuring it out.

English

She finished the writing assignment on the first six chapters of the book – In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez – and read chapter seven.

Chinese

Over lunch, we talked about online Chinese and she decided she’d rather wait and take it at the community college next fall through Running Start.

Home School 5th Grade

Math

My fifth grader finished her estimation project and emailed it to her teacher. She got an immediate response congratulating her on it.

Science

She finished her science writing assignment from yesterday. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks long.

Literacy

She finished Young Elites by Marie Lu, the book she chose yesterday.

Home

I made my teenager clean the bathroom while the fifth grader and I worked on the living room. She vacuumed and tidied; I scrubbed all the rabbit fur and incense dust off the mantel. (Our pet rabbits live in a pen set up around the fireplace.)

Free Time

In our house, we have a rule, “She who cleans the bathroom gets a break.” So the teen got most of the afternoon free. She chose to fill most of the time with games on the Switch.

The fifth grader created an account on Astral Table Top so that she can play RPGs online with her friends. She spent some time with the Pathfinder rulebook putting together a campaign. Then she played outside and walked the cat.

Extracurriculars

Usually the girls have kung fu on Tuesdays at 5. The kung fu studio is technically open right now, with a class limit of 10 people with a bunch of hygiene and spacing requirements. We have opted to stay home for the first two weeks, so this was our first digital kung fu class.

We moved the living room furniture out to the walls and called in on Zoom. It was awkward, to say the least. The sound from the gym was tinny and echoed; on the other end, they could hear my husband cooking dinner in the next room. Whenever the teacher moved fast, the video pixelated. They didn’t try to teach any new material, and obviously couldn’t do any partner work.

But at least they got to practice some forms so they won’t forget them. It got the kids moving around for an hour (not as much as regular class – our living room isn’t that big). And the kids were so excited every time one of their classmates showed up in front of the camera.

Freelance Work

And what about me? Did I get any work done?

Not much. I fact-checked my COVID-19 story from last week to see if anything was still current enough for publication Wednesday. I made the necessary changes and resubmitted it.

Another editor sent changes she made to an article of mine about Earth Day, updating with coronavirus impacts. I double checked the edits and signed off on the changes.

I outlined an article on flying with kids before receiving an email that it was going to be postponed (again) and replaced it with something more corona-contemporary.

But hey, tomorrow is another day. And I’m sure I’ll get more work done then.