COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 39

The painters are done and gone, the tilers aren't coming back until the additional replacement tiles they ordered come in, and the dust has literally settled for now. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we all feel more positive this morning. Let's hope our work today reflects our fresh attitude!

6-8:30am: We agreed that the hamster cage would be in my daughter's room for a few nights and then my son's room for a few nights so she wouldn't get overwhelmed by the paint fumes. Last night was my son's turn. He slept well despite her noises - until his sister burst into the room at 6am to play with Ricochet. A slight kerfuffle was settled (or at least muted) by a sleepy "Hey, knock it off!" from the parental bedroom. Everyone was breakfasted, cleared up, and brushed and washed by school time.

8:30-9:15am: My daughter tried to finish up her math FlipGrid assignment from yesterday, but had another mild meltdown. I walked her through the solution that she figured out yesterday, but she still wasn't comfortable with how we solved it and wasn't ready to explain her answer on camera. So I had her move on to today's math assignment, which fortunately did not include a FlipGrid, but was an assignment on equivalent fractions in GregTangMath. I asked my son to work on math as well, just to keep them on the same general topic. He worked on Zearn until I noticed that his feet were FILTHY and I sent him upstairs to scrub before he got dirt all over the furniture.

9:15-10am: My daughter opted to listen to some books on Epic; my son is doing a class assignment on ReadWorks. While they were doing this, we actually had some additional workers come to repair and repaint the front door (I had forgotten they were scheduled today) and do a bit more touch-up work in the basement, but fortunately, for the most part they were quiet and out of our way.

10-10:45am: My daughter watched Circle Time with Miss Tracey, then I let her take a "hamster break." My son watched the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy live feed.

10:45-11:30am: They asked to play "Workout War" together upstairs, since the weather is getting icky. They did start off with a deck of cards, but judging from the running, squealing, and thumping going on up there, it's moved on from Workout War to simply "run around chasing your sibling." As long as they keep up the "run around" part, it counts as P.E.

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

1-2pm: My daughter has a Google Classroom Meeting with her teacher. I'm hoping they'll be going over the math that she is so struggling with. I'll be eavesdropping a little to see if they do, and if so, how exactly they teach it. One of the hardest things about teaching math is that they use specific solving strategies which will be used as building blocks for the next skills, so even if I teach them how to solve the problem, it doesn't always teach them the intended lesson. My son has band rehearsal at 1:15, but the living room is still in a bit of a shambles, so I'm letting him rehearse in his bedroom instead. I hope the hamster has earplugs.

One more day under our belts! One day closer to the end of school, one day closer to getting our house on the market, one day closer to being in our beautiful new home. As I keep telling my husband, anyone can eat an elephant, as long as they keep nibbling. Nibble nibble!