COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 22

As I mentioned before, my son does really well with a specific schedule, so I went to his Google Classroom and found his assignments for the week, and used them to put together a schedule for today. I did warn him that we may need to be flexible with his time, in case anything takes longer than I planned (or if he finishes early), but I think the structure will be helpful for him. My daughter's assignments are a little more nebulous (there's more "go to this math site and play some games" rather than a specific activity to complete), so I'm playing her schedule a little more by ear. But here's what we ended up doing today:

7-8:30am: Get up, have breakfast, get brushed and washed and dressed.

8:30-9am: I had assigned my son to listen to an audiobook on the American Revolution, but it turned out that he had already read it, so we jumped ahead to a written assignment answering questions about it. We struggled a bit in figuring out how to access an editable PDF version, but he managed to make it work. He is reviewing parts of the audiobook while he answers. My daughter is listening to the audiobook, "One Plastic Bag" by Miranda Paul, about recycling efforts in Gambia. When she finished that one, she went on to other books in her teacher's recommended list. They are both working quietly with their headphones on and earbuds in. It is a beautiful thing.

9-9:30am: My daughter continued to read (she's not usually a big reader, so I let her keep going). My son is doing an art assignment that requires drawing objects without lifting your pencil off the page.

9:30-10:30am: We live on the border of Lexington, MA, so we frequently attend the annual reenactment of the battle of Lexington and Concord which would normally be taking place around this time. Since they obviously can't hold a reenactment this year, the Lexington Historical Society posted a great virtual reenactment online. I had the kids watch it together while I had a virtual coffee break with a friend. When they finished, I had them watch a few episodes of the TV series, "Liberty's Kids." We've watched them before - or at least my son has - but they're worth watching again. Both my kids are pretty interested in American history, especially the American Revolution, so this feels like fun to them, rather than schoolwork.

10:30-11:30am: My daughter had requested doing an art project assigned by her teacher for the week: drawing something they can see. She asked that we take turns assigning each other drawings. Clearly, she did not inherit her artistic talent from me. My son asked to do independent reading for an hour, so he's reading his kids' version of Shakespeare's Othello, then he moved on to "The Blue Book of Stories" by Tom Longano.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time.

1-2:30pm: My son has a Google Meet with his class. My daughter and I had a practical life lesson: we cleaned her pit of a room and changed her sheets, including learning how to use the washer and dryer. My son stayed on the video chat after his Meet was over and played some building and engineering games with his friends, and my daughter went online and played some strategy games with her friends.

In addition, my daughter is now attending her Wednesday tap and jazz dance classes and her Friday ballet and hip hop dance classes, so she'll spend 1-1/2 hours this evening getting a good workout, and since the weather is overcast but warm, I'll send my son outside to get some fresh air and exercise once he ends his call.

All in all, it was a good day!! We've done most of what was on the kids' assignment lists for the week, which means we can do some more fun enrichment activities tomorrow. Maybe there's another cool science experiment we can do! It's been too long since we've done something messy and stinky.