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Speaking of exciting, we watched NASA's live feed of the SpaceX Dragon crew launching and then docking with the International Space Station over the weekend. What a historic moment! I tuned in NASA's live stream on Saturday around noon, just to be sure I could find it, and the feed was so fascinating that I watched all the way until the launch at 3:22pm and quite a ways afterwards. I tuned in again on Sunday morning to watch the docking. Since that happened at 10:32am, our online church service (which starts at 10:30am) actually cut over to the livestream coverage for a few moments so we could all watch it. The kids watched some of the coverage, as well, so I'm giving them some extra credit for (class) time served.
7-8:30am: I have decided to try to be a little more organized this week. While the kids are making their own breakfasts (and I've already had mine), I'm looking over their class schedules for the week and setting up a daily schedule for each of them. My daughter slept late this morning (my husband caught her playing on her computer at 11pm when he went to bed), so I'll let her have a delayed start (but with an equally delayed end time).
8:30-9am: My son has some questions to answer based on a reading assignment - he has the choice of writing his answers in paragraph form or submitting verbal answers using a FlipGrid video. Surprisingly, he chose to write out (or at least, type out) his answers. He had to go back and review the reading material (regarding the 19th Amendment) before he could answer. He struggled a bit at first, and we did some talking through and thinking out loud together about the questions (including some discussions about the protests that are going on right now), but then he did some good research and put together a well-reasoned and well-supported answer. My daughter just began to roll out of bed at 8, quite bleary-eyed, so I'm giving her this time to pull herself together and get dressed and have breakfast.
9-9:45am: My son is now watching a video on understanding what an activist is. He went on to read on Lexia, a reading app, for his required 30 minutes. My daughter is also working on Lexia, but she's only required to spend 20 minutes. When she finished, she went on to do a FlipGrid math problem. These are still something of a trial for her, but writing a script definitely helps. I think the best thing I've ever taught her, especially in regards to word problems, is, "Start with what you know." Sounds totally intuitive, but it's not for her. Once she writes down those facts and has them right in front of her, she manages to pull herself together and figure out the problem. It's amazing how one little strategy can make a difference!
9:45-10:15am: I asked my son to work on his project for Challenge class, using the outline he completed last week, incorporating his teacher's comments and writing up some of the sections. Last week he ended up finishing the assignment at the very last minute and I want him to plan ahead this week, especially with only 2 more weekly classes. My daughter is doing math on the Zearn website.
10:15-10:30am: My son is working on a few different math assignments, including exercises on adding angles and measuring angles. When I checked on my daughter earlier she had logged off of Zearn and was goofing off instead, so she's working on Zearn again now and will be doing an extended day to make up the time. I don't play that game.
10:30-11:40am: The high school's robotics team periodically posts STEM challenges on YouTube. This week's challenge (posted by one of my students, which makes it especially fun for me to watch) was to build a house that can float, made from simple objects around the house, like straws, cardboard, plastic cups, and wooden sticks. I asked both kids to watch the video and then try to make their own floating house.
Some designs required a little more tweaking than others! My son finished up early so I had him do his 20 minutes of Splat! math. My daughter had just a few minutes so she worked on independent reading. They both lost track of time and happily ran a few minutes over so I happily let them.
11:40am-1pm: Lunch break and free time.
1-2pm: My son has a Google Classroom Meet, so that will be the end of his school day. My daughter is working on more independent reading.
2-3pm: My daughter is still making up time, both from starting late and from goofing off when she was supposed to be working, so we ended the day with me reading her a few chapters of "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park.
Whew, today was a long one. But we finished, we got a lot done, we had a little bit of fun, and now we still have some time to relax and play (and maybe even put away some clean laundry!) before dinner. It was a good day.
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