COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 57

By the numbers:
57 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
10 days until moving day
10 Google/Zoom meetings this week
9 days until we close on the house
7 days of homeschool still to go (also counting today)
2 trips to school to pick up personal items and drop off library books and textbooks

7-8:30am: Get up, get dressed (except for my daughter, who begged to have a pajama day today), have breakfast, brush teeth and hair.

8:30-9am: My daughter has chosen to start with Zearn math for 20 minutes. She struggling a little with comparing fractions so we went over it together, drawing diagrams, so I had her do a full 30 minutes of practice. One of my son's assignments is to write a letter to his 5th-grade teacher. He was doubtful about doing it since he doesn't know who his 5th grade teacher will be. But I reminded him that even if we weren't moving, he wouldn't know who his teacher will be yet. And we talked about how his 5th grade teacher in Waltham would probably already know who he is and would be able to talk to his current teacher about what he's good at and what he has a hard time with, but his 5th grade teacher in his new school won't have any of that information, so it would be even more helpful to write that letter. I promised that we would send it on ahead to his new school so his teacher could get to know him a little before school started. He thought about that for a minute and then agreed that it could be a good idea.

9-9:30am: My daughter moved on to working on Lexia. My son finished up his letter to his teacher and then went on to Lexia as well. I am cleaning the refrigerator. I am remembering how much I dislike cleaning the refrigerator. I am glad that we have a very large recycle bin - and a garbage disposal.

9:30-10am:  My son has band rehearsal at 9:45 so I gave him a few extra minutes on Lexia and then sent him upstairs to get out his trombone and set up his music stand. My daughter is doing some independent reading, and also some reading through Epic.

10-10:45am: The kids' school is doing a grade-by-grade pickup of the kids' personal belongings that were left in their desks and lockers, and 10-11:30am is pickup for 3rd graders, so I am driving over to the school to collect whatever detritus my daughter left behind. I am predicting markers, crayons, and probably a sweatshirt. Possibly some abandoned mittens that have been languishing since December. Fortunately, their school got a grant that provided free lunches to all students so they haven't been bringing their lunches to school, so no expectations of rotted food, unless (crosses fingers) there's a nasty ziploc bag of something that used to be strawberries. [N.B. No rotted food, strawberries or otherwise, was found. Phew!] While I'm doing this, my son is in the middle of his band rehearsal and my daughter is watching Circle Time with Miss Tracey. I should be back shortly before she finishes, and long before my son's rehearsal ends. My daughter asked to continue with her reading after Circle Time ended and after she looked through the little package of gifts that her teacher sent home.

10:45-11:30am: My daughter is doing a math FlipGrid - unsupervised. We'll see how this one goes. My son is also working on his math assignments, which includes watching a video about TanGrams.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time! It's gorgeous out, so this afternoon's "class" might be P.E.; i.e., swimming in the pool.

1-2pm: Swim class! All three of us don our swimsuits and jump into the pool. While we swam, we played 30 questions (all animals/plants) and I gave them a spelling quiz, so it totally counts as class time.

I also had them sort through all the stuff that was in their desks that their teachers sent home. A few keepers (mostly art supplies and pencil boxes), a lot to be looked at and enjoyed (and, in a few cases, photographed) and then tossed, and a good bit simply tossed. It felt rather cathartic (to me, if not to them).

And that was our school day! One more down, 6 more to go!