Week Three Themes – Pandemic Homeschool Diaries

Moving into and through the third week of pandemic homeschooling, and typing up every lesson and activity the kids do is becoming burdensome and boring. And honestly, now that we’re getting into a routine, I’m not tracking all that closely. Which is not to say that I’m not as involved – I took most of last Friday off to plan. I think it’s paying off. This week, a few themes have started to emerge.

Teacher Contact

In week two, many of the kids’ teachers began to reach out on various digital platforms – Schoology, YouTube, email, OneNote – to provide guidance and activities. Last week the state determined that “enrichment” and “maintenance” weren’t going to cut it. They set out some guidelines that districts are still figuring out how to follow. For some of the teachers, it has actually meant stepping back a bit. But for most, we are starting to get a lot more content. Now my challenge is figuring out how to integrate that new content with stuff we’re already doing.

Opening the Planning Window

At first we figured out each day’s curriculum after breakfast in the morning. Having some indication from teachers about how much work they’ll be providing and when has made it possible to start planning further ahead. A lot of what I did last Friday was put together a scheduling template for a week’s worth of work for each kid.

More Like Guidelines

But Tuesday afternoon, both girls had scribbled changes all over their sheets. Teachers assigned new due dates, or posted new materials. Some activities turned out to take longer than expected and other things had to slide to the next day. But the basic idea that this is one week’s worth of work holds. The priority is to meet deadlines set by teachers. The girls have discretion on how to complete the work, with the understanding that everything on the sheet has to be finished before school starts next Monday.

via Gfycat

Seattle Public Schools Resources

I’ve added some things to my kids’ learning day – like requiring cursive and assigning reading – but even during the first chaotic two weeks we mostly depended on work prepared by their teachers. We had at least two weeks worth of math worksheets and videos, science units, and ongoing projects.

Last week the district started adding elementary content to their YouTube channel, which I’m now exploring. The first thing we tried was an art project for grades 3-5 using craft paper. My daughter made this piece, and called it “Nostalgia.”

We also tried a language arts unit involving coral reefs. Later this week, we’re going to try this music lesson.

Just when I noticed that my high schooler was still getting lots of physical activity but the little wasn’t, her school sent out a physical education challenge. So we’ve added that to kung fu classes. I might start making her do yoga with me once a week, too.

SEL

For those not in tune with current educational jargon, SEL is Social and Emotional Learning. It sounds woo-woo, and part of me wants to side-eye, but there is good research supporting its value.

My daughter’s elementary school uses a Mood Meter, and suggested we download an app for daily use to monitor how everyone is holding up during physical isolation. But the app cost a dollar and I had plans.

Coursera offers a whole bunch of online courses. But I’d already heard of this Yale happiness course (The Science of Well Being) before pandemic. When I found out you could audit the course online for free, I decided to give it a shot. I did the first week myself to get an idea what to expect, then this week had the kids sign up too. My youngest is relieved she doesn’t have to do the mood meter; my oldest is excited to be able to say she’s taking a course at Yale. She was pretty disappointed I didn’t pay $50 for the certificate so she could put it on her resume though.

Since the girls are only a couple days in, I don’t know how they are going to feel about it once the work starts.

Drivers Ed, Bubble Tea and Mental Health

Before the pandemic, I used to joke that my freelance lifestyle made me a shut-in. Now I realize how little of a joke that was – I’ve traded schlepping kids to activities for homeschooling, but otherwise, my life has hardly changed at all.

My husband and fifth grader are both introverts, too, and none of us is much affected so far by isolation. My high schooler is an extrovert and an athlete. She had been handling the isolation really well, and spends time online connecting with her friends every day.

But on Sunday night, she realized that not only is she missing ice skating now, but that there will probably not be a competition season this year. And it kind of pushed her over the edge. She had a bit of a meltdown, and slept so badly that night that she kept most of the house awake. On Monday, she was, frankly, insufferable.

So for driving practice, I made her drive to U Village, where we practiced parking. Then I made her drive up the Ave, which was under construction and involved all sorts of weirdness. Then she had to park on the street (she wasn’t up to parallel parking yet, but fortunately there were so many open spaces she just had to get close to the curb). And we walked to her favorite tea shop, where the man behind the counter wore gloves and an N95 mask. We ordered our favorite drinks, inserted straws without touching them, then used hand sanitizer before drinking them. She drove us home and we washed our hands as soon as we walked in the door.

Since the bubble tea place was open, I guess we weren’t technically breaking any public safety orders. The part of me that side-eyes feelings felt a little guilty, and tipped $3 for our $10 order for the poor guy who had to work with the public during a pandemic, probably for minimum wage. But the difference that little bit of normalcy made for my kid was unbelievable. From a mental health perspective, our bubble tea outing – the first time either of us had entered a public space in over two weeks – was an essential activity.

Housework

My husband and I have continued with the deep cleaning activities. And let me tell you, they were needed.

{Add to the list of “why doesn’t anyone make the gifs I want?”: When the witches in Stardust turn on the lights in the castle and Michelle Pfeiffer says, “How have we lived like this all these years?”}

But we’ve kind of let the girls off the hook. They aren’t spending much less time on school work than usual, so it’s been hard to find time. This week I’m going to try to double down on the housekeeping tasks.

Covid Count

The papers of full of headlines about how distancing is helping. But the Department of Health website is having technical difficulties and hasn’t updated case counts since Saturday, so I’m not sure what data they’re basing it on. Anyway, on Saturday, they reported 2161 cases in King County with 144 deaths – which in no way indicated a slow down from the previous few days.