COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 41

Today is Thursday, which means today is Trash Day. One of my son's chores is bringing out the trash and recycling bins first thing in the morning on Trash Day and bringing them back in after school. With all the purging and de-cluttering we're been doing, there are bags (and bags and bags and bags) and piles (and piles and piles) of trash to go out to the curb in addition to the usual bins. Most of them are quite heavy, so my daughter is excused from helping, but since my son is as strong as an ox, he helped my husband and I haul them all to the curb. And just to keep things fun, my husband sat on the corner of our bed to put his shoes on before he started hauling the trash, and the corner of the bed frame split. One more thing to add to our fix-it list. So that was an exciting start to our day! Let's see how the rest of the day goes.

7-8:15am: As mentioned above, my son spent most of his morning hauling heavy trash, including a barbecue grill, several bags full of heavy glass and ceramic items, and a couple of piles of disassembled small furniture. He earns a full week of P.E. credit for that!

8:15-8:45am: I told the kids they were in charge of their own breakfasts, and they both wanted one of the homemade English muffins that I baked yesterday. (They came out great, by the way!) I told my son he could start school a little late because of all the work he'd already done, and just because I needed time for my coffee and breakfast, I told my daughter she could start a little late, too. She begged to wear her pajamas again. I agreed, but they're fleece and it's supposed to get up to the low 70s today, so I'm holding out hope that at some point she might want to change to something cooler and go outside to play.

8:45-9:30am: We looked over each of their weekly and daily assignments. My daughter is starting with an EstiMystery and then moving on to a math assignment from yesterday that she didn't do. It's another FlipGrid, so I suspect it will turn out to be another meltdown situation. But maybe not. Either way, it will definitely require significant supervision and assistance from me. [Note: Today's FlipGrid was a great success, with the exception that she had to re-record her response several times because she accidentally deleted it.] My son has an optional immigration project. He swears he's finished everything that's required. I'll look more closely at that later, but for now, immigration it is.

9:30-10am: Since my daughter did so well with her first math FlipGrid, I encouraged her to go back and try to redo the one she struggled with on Monday. We reviewed the problem together first. My son is continuing on with his immigration project.

10-10:45am: My son is watching Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. My daughter is still struggling with her FlipGrid. There's no Morning Circle with Miss Tracey today [Note: She posted a video a little later, so we'll come back to this later in the day], so I'm having her continue to work. We walked through the solution several times, and I think she understands it, but she's still somewhat in meltdown mode, which makes it hard to record her FlipGrid. She's also not quite solid on the solution, which makes it harder to explain. But she's already dodged doing it for several days, so I want her to plow through and get it done. I know it's hard but she'll feel so much better once she does it. I haven't been choosing a lot of hills to die on, academically, but this is one. I'm gritting my teeth, but we'll get through it. We ended up writing out a script so she could read it rather than having to explain on the fly. It was still hard for her, but she did it, and I'm very proud - and I think she is, too. I gave her a break after she finished, and she asked if she could take a little nap. I remember when I was in school and I struggled with something that brought me to tears, I always needed a nap afterwards, so I told her sure. Of course, as soon as she went upstairs, she got distracted by the hamster and her brother, but it seems to be putting her back into a good mood, so I'm letting her roll with it.

10:45-11:30am: In lieu of independent reading for both of them, I'm reading the Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. It's a slightly more accessible Holocaust story than Anne Frank (and was also recommended by several teacher friends whose 3rd and 4th grade classes love it). I wasn't sure they'd stick it out for the whole 45 minutes, but they did, without even complaining or asking when we were going to be done.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. I spent it hanging a somewhat recalcitrant set of venetian blinds. I have neither sweated nor sworn under my breath that much in a very long time, but it's done and I am quite proud of myself.

1-2pm: Both kids have a Google Classroom Meeting today, so I can take a break from supervising them and get more work done around the house. And also sit down and eat lunch.

There was plenty of frustration mixed in with accomplishments today, but in the end, we got some good stuff done. We're still nibbling away at that elephant!