COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 62

By the numbers:
62 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
11 interested parties who came to look at our house this weekend
3 (maybe 4) Google/Zoom meetings left this week
3 days until moving day
2 days until we close on the house
1 day of homeschool still to go after today

This is it. This is the week when it all happens. School is over. We close on and then move into our new house. We consider offers on our old house. We change our lives. We begin a new adventure. We close one chapter of our lives and open another.

Not surprisingly, my emotions are all over the map. I'm sad, I'm thrilled, I'm excited, I'm terrified. Sad to leave a home with so many happy memories. Thrilled to be moving on to a new adventure. Excited for the opportunities ahead for every member of my family. Terrified to be starting over in so many ways.

But even as all those changes come, there are some constants. We still need to eat three meals a day. We will still get up and get dressed and laugh together and learn together and play together. There are still birds to watch at the feeder and chipmunks in the yard. There are still sunrises to enjoy over a cup of coffee and sunsets over a glass of wine. Before long, we will be enjoying all of them with new friends and a new sense of familiarity.

But right now, we're still in the familiar, the comfortable, the known. We're still enjoying our "new normal" routines. And so we will spend two more days of homeschool, even as we finish packing our lives for our new adventures.

Here's what today's "normal" looked like.

7-8:30am: I had promised the kids that our last two days of school would be fun and easy. My daughter's class is having a Google Classroom Meeting at the end of our school day today and tomorrow; my son's class is having one tomorrow as well. I have yet to see what other assignments they have for today and tomorrow, but we're planning on movies and swimming being a major part of our day. So we began with bacon and pancakes. Followed by some degree of getting dressed, brushed, and washed.

8:30-9:30am: We started by watching a link to an 11-minute video on the history of Walt Disney, posted by my son's teacher. That had a link to another video in the series covering the history of the Disney theme parks, so we happily fell down that rabbit hole and went on learning about a bunch of individual rides and virtually riding them. 

9:30-10am: I had also told them that we could watch a movie, and since they couldn't agree on one between themselves, I got to pick (standing rule in our house for movie and TV watching). I found a cute family movie called Annabelle Hooper and the Ghosts of Nantucket, so I got them started on that while I went upstairs and packed everything we can live without for the next four days.

10-11am: My daughter took a quick break to watch Circle Time with Miss Tracey, and my son (who was not loving the movie, despite the adorableness of our heroine Annabelle) went to his room to read on Epic for a while. Once Circle Time was over, my daughter went back to watching the rest of the movie. I continued to pack. The medicine cabinet was an interesting exercise in statistics: What are the chances that anyone in the family will need Pepto Bismol in the next 72 hours? Or Benadryl? Or an Ace bandage? Meh, it's all going in the box. I'll try to remember which box everything is in just in case of emergency and we need to bust something out. (We all know I won't remember, but there's a CVS down the street, so it's a gamble I'm willing to take.)

11am-1pm: Long lunch break and free time! I grabbed a quick lunch and then continued packing up the kitchen. I have 3 K-cups lined up and mentally labeled as Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We have three breakfasts, two lunches, and one or two dinners left, so I am running through meal options in my mind as I pack. I packed the spice and baking cabinets with the exceptions of vanilla and cinnamon (for French toast), Montreal steak seasoning and vegetable oil (for grilling steak), a few measuring cups and pancake mix (for obvious reasons), and salt and pepper. For similar reasons, the gadget drawer now consists of mainly pancake turners, meat thermometers, and a couple of spoons.

1-2pm: My daughter has a Google Classroom Meeting. My son is going for a swim in the pool. I'm supervising, timing his laps, listening to the local mockingbird going through his repertoire, and hoping a hummingbird or two will wander by. I already swapped over a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer, and I've packed everything that can be packed today, at least in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen. There's still stuff in the laundry room (mostly my husband's tools, so I'm leaving those for him) and the office (also leaving that for my husband), so I think the only other nook I can clear out more at this point is the hall closet, and there's not much left there other than our liquor stash. So I feel like we're in good shape! Or at least as good as we're going to get. Once my daughter's call ended, she and my husband both threw on their suits and jumped in. I'm dunking in my toes and delivering warm towels as needed.

This evening's dinner menu is salmon (cooked on the grill because I already packed the cookie sheets), so not much preparation needed. Which means we can all kick back and relax for a bit, content in the thought that there's only one more day of school and it looks like we're going to make it through the week just fine!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 61

By the numbers:
61 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
6 days until moving day
5 days until we close on the house
2 Google/Zoom meetings left this week
3 days of homeschool still to go (also counting today)
1 day until our first (and hopefully last?!??) Open House for this house

Due to tomorrow's Open House, I will be frantically cleaning all day and supervising the kids only minimally. Which is to say, whatever this schedule says the kids did, there's no guarantee that it was actually done. Nor do I care all that much. We're just trying to get through these last few days without losing our minds.

So here's what we said we did today, whether or not we actually did it.

7-8:30am: Get up, get dressed, have breakfast, brush hair and teeth. I'm very certain we're all up and everyone had breakfast. Anything else is debatable.

8:30-9am: Both kids now know the drill: Start by looking at your daily and weekly assignments to see what needs to be done (or finished) today. Both of their teachers went pretty light on today's work, so there's not a lot to be done. They both asked to do more of the Virtual Field Day games, so I told them that if they worked on at least one regular assignment first, we would do some field day games before it gets too hot. They both opted to do their half hour on Lexia.

9-9:30am: Field Day Games!!! My son reviewed the states and capitals while my daughter collected what we needed for a few different games. But then they changed their minds and asked if they could just play outside, since it's so nice out. Sure, why not?

9:30-10am: And then I smelled a weird burning smell and ran outside to find my son lighting basil leaves on fire with a lighter. So he spent the rest of the half hour in detention; i.e., sitting at the table doing nothing. I suppose everyone is an idiot at age 10, but lighting things on fire when you've had innumerable Cub Scout and parental lectures about why it's a bad idea AND doing it where your mom can see (and smell) it from the window is an added level of idiocy. Oh, the teenage years are going to be a challenge. My daughter is still running around and playing. I am vacuuming the basement so I can make sure he stays in detention. Partway through he called over his sister and convinced her to let him watch her Chromebook.

10-10:30am:  He is now writing "I will not light things on fire" 100 times in cursive. She is watching Miss Tracey's Circle Time. I am wondering if it's too early to have a cocktail. (He got about as far as the fifth repetition in the first 15 minutes before I took mercy on him and we had a big hug and a little chat. I don't think he'll be trying that again any time soon. Probably something else equally egregious, but not that.)

10:30-11am: He has his final trombone lesson of the year, so he's getting out of detention to do that. She's doing her Zearn math. I am vacuuming the entire house and being grateful that the new house is all hardwood floors and tiled bathrooms. Also cursing that two of the people in this house have long, thick, wavy hair. Soooo much hair.

11am-12:30pm: We're all toast, so we decided to take an early lunch break. 

12:30-1:30pm: We're still toast, so we read Harry Potter together for an hour and then declared ourselves done. DONE!

Two more days to go. We can do this! Have a great weekend, everyone!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 60

By the numbers:
60 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
7 days until moving day (EEEE ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!)
6 days until we close on the house
4 Google/Zoom meetings left this week
4 days of homeschool still to go (also counting today)
2 days until our first (and hopefully last?!??) Open House for this house

Lots of milestones today. SIXTY days of homeschool. ONE WEEK until moving day.

It's gettin' real, y'all.

My day today will be filled with neatening the house for this weekend's Open House appointments, boxing up anything we can live without for the next week, finalizing inventory for the movers, and trying not to freak out. Somewhere in there I'll try to make sure the kids learn something useful. Will probably throw some food at them at a couple of points throughout the day. All that is to set, set your expectations pretty low for today; I know I have.

Anyway, here's today's schedule.

7-8:30am: My calculations state that we have enough eggs, bread, butter, and syrup to have French toast for breakfast. My son requests scrambled eggs and toast, so I make both and go a little heavy on my daughter's syrup so I don't have to recalculate. You may think I'm kidding, but my husband asked me last night if I was trying to get rid of EVERYTHING consumable before we leave. Hahahahaha. He thought he was joking. My biggest accomplishment of the day was finishing off the 128-oz bottle of conditioner that I bought a year and a half ago. This is serious stuff, people. Where was I? Oh yeah, get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, clean up breakfast dishes, brush hair and teeth. (For the record, there is exactly enough toothpaste left in the tube for both kids to brush their teeth twice daily until the move.)

8:30-9:15am: This Sunday is "Youth Sunday," at our church, so the youth choir director set up an accompaniment recording so each kid can record him- or herself singing "This Little Light of Mine." I forgot to have them do it after they rehearsed it with her last Friday, so I'm having them review it, then we'll record each of them separately. I'm having my daughter do it first while I send my son back upstairs to tame his crazy hair. Although I'm tempted to leave it in the video because it is EPIC. One of the benefits of ridiculously thick hair is really impressive bedhead. My son recorded his first then I sent him to do read Robin Hood on my Kindle. My daughter struggled a little with parts of the song, and when I corrected her, she started to melt down, so her recording took more time and more takes than I expected. When I went to check on her brother, he was playing games and guiltily switched back to the home screen hoping I wouldn't notice. Oops, his reading timer just reset to zero and he's now sitting next to me, reading with the Kindle on the table where I can see the screen.

9:15-9:45am: My son is re-starting his half hour of reading, and my daughter is listening to Dragons Love Tacos on Epic. I had planned on getting some work done, but clearly I need to sit and supervise. Ah, parenting.

9:45-10:30am: Both kids are switching over to math. I asked my son to check for any specific math assignments from his teacher, but it was just Zearn, so he's doing 30 minutes on Zearn. After my daughter finished the books she was listening to, she checked her assignment list as well. She's tried to do a Numskill assignment (she doesn't get the pun) on Greg Tang Math, but there wasn't a link, and we couldn't find any problems using the skill that was described in the assignment, so after 10 minutes of frustration on both our parts, we canned that and she's just doing by 20 minutes of Zearn. I checked on my son and found that once again he had opened a second window and was watching a video instead of doing his work. Timer reset. AGAIN. Since I'm using the time I had set aside to clean the house to supervise him instead, guess who'll be helping me clean this afternoon instead of watching videos and goofing off? I just flipped over to watch an African LiveCam and there were two elephants challenging each other to a showdown. How very apropos. Also of note: The bigger elephant won. 

10:30-11am: My son reviewed his states and capitals with a posted study guide. He moved on to Lexia for 20 minutes. My daughter has moved on to an assignment to continue writing a persuasive speech about water conservation to present during her Google Classroom Meeting today. Neither of us has any idea what this assignment is and have never heard of it before, so either we both missed something or she blew off something that was discussed at a class meeting. I told her to just write up an argument about why water conservation is important and ways we as individuals can conserve water. We'll see if this is anywhere close to the actual assignment. When my son finished his time on Lexia, he solved this week's EstiMystery.

11-11:30am: My son is working on Math Playground. Then he took a virtual field trip to Universal Studios, Hollywood, along with reading a brief history. My daughter is writing in her journal. I asked her to write about herself - what she's doing and feeling - rather than simply describing her friends, as she usually does. She did finally describe a little about what being quarantined is like, and even described an outing with the drone that she took with her dad and brother a few days ago. I got her teacher's email reminder about today's class meeting, which including a short mention of the persuasive writing assignment. She mentioned that they could include a drawing with their presentation, so I had my daughter work on that until break time.

11:30am-1pm: At last, lunch break and free time! Which means I can finally get straightening and organizing.

1-2pm: Both kids have a class meeting, followed by some chat time. This is their second-to-last class meeting! Both will also have a final meeting at the end of the last day of school. We will all be incredibly relieved when that happens.

Well, the kids managed to get a little work done, I managed to get a little work done, we all still have some chores to do before the end of the day, and the thunderstorms that appear to be rolling in should knock beat the heat and humidity a little. There were a few rough patches all around, but we made it.

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 59

By the numbers:
59 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
8 days until moving day (hooray for single digits!!)
7 days until we close on the house
6 Google/Zoom meetings left this week
5 days of homeschool still to go (also counting today)

It's another glorious morning, not too hot and not too humid, and we're all refreshed from our light day yesterday and a good night's sleep. We're ready to take on the world! Or at least the day. Here's our daily schedule:

7-8:30am: As my Facebook friends are aware, I've been playing a game I dubbed "Use Up That Bottle Cocktail Roulette" (UUTBCR for short) in order to use up some of the half-empty bottles of liquor we have left over from parties so we don't have to pack them when we move. With only about a week to go, this concept is spilling over into everything from other food items to toiletries. I'm making decisions about baking bread based on how many loaves are required to finish up that bag of flour, decisions about whether or not to condition my hair based on how much is left in the bottle of conditioner, even whether to use the kids' toothpaste or my own preferred brand so as to have one less tube to throw into a box on that last day. All that is to say that I came thisclose to finishing up the giant bag of Krusteaz pancake mix from Costco for this morning's breakfast, so guess what tomorrow's breakfast will also be? Ahem, topic. Ah yes, get up, get dressed, have breakfast, clean up breakfast dishes, brush hair and teeth. Check.

8:30-8:45am: We're back to following their teachers' daily assignments today, but I think we'll start with math because that tends to be a little trickier for Child #1 and sometimes includes actual submissions for Child #2. Good to get both of those out of the way while they're still fresh. My daughter is starting with Zearn math, but also asked to do a music assignment before doing her FlipGrid. My son is doing his Kahoot math assignment first.

8:45-9:30am: Field Day! Today would have been Field Day at school, when the kids all spend the day outside playing games and doing fun physical challenges. My son's teacher gave them suggestions of 10 exercises they could do, so I'm having both kids do them together (I'm even joining in a little). We can all use the exercise - and the laughs. We're starting with a Wheelbarrow Race!

Followed by sack races (self-explanatory) and penguin races (which involve running back and forth between two cups while holding a ball between your knees without dropping it). There was much hilarity, especially when I joined in. In related news, fat thighs are a huge advantage in penguin races (needless to say, I won handily - er, leggily).

9:30-10am: We thought about doing a dance party (which was one of the Field Day suggestions), but both kids had tired themselves out a little, so they're both doing reading with Epic instead. I might save the dance party for after lunch, though.

10-10:30am: Circle Time with Miss Tracey and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. I love knowing that there's a half hour every day when I don't have to think about what they'll do! I am folding laundry because it is the Chore That Never Ends.

10:30-11:30am: I went up in the attic to finish clearing and packing up there, and I honestly lost track of time at this point, so I have no idea what they did. Hopefully something useful? I dunno.

11:30-12pm: My daughter started her lunch break and free time. My son had his final Challenge Class. He was less than enthusiastic and gave monosyllabic answers to his teacher's questions about how he was feeling. As much as I expect him to give thoughtful, respectful answers to his teachers when they ask questions, no-one should be made to share their feelings publicly when they don't want to. Not everyone is comfortable with being touchy-feely; please respect a child's emotional privacy the same way you respect their bodily autonomy.

12-1pm: Lunch break and free time for both.

1-2pm: We're sitting out back and I'm re-reading them Harry Potter. Not a bad way to end the day.

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 58

By the numbers:
58 days of homeschool so far (counting today)
9 days until moving day (hooray for single digits!!)
8 Google/Zoom meetings left this week
8 days until we close on the house
6 days of homeschool still to go (also counting today)
2 kids who are begging for a "light day" today
1 mom who can totally go for that

Yesterday when I picked up the kids' things at their school, I had a lovely chat with each of their teachers, who sent along their best wishes for our move, and who assured me that both kids are doing great in their studies and that they are confident the kids will settle in quickly, both socially and academically. Even though I felt that way myself, it was reassuring to hear it from a professional who not only knows my kids in both those settings, but who sees lots of the kids' peers and has a solid basis of comparison for what's expected at that age. Which is all to say that I am confident that taking a day off having a light day today will not be a problem in any way, and will likely be good for all our mental health.

That said, here is what a "light day" looks like in our homeschool.

7-8:30am: Last night, I asked the kids to put in their request for today's breakfast, and they were both in the mood for scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage (well, one kid requested sausage; the other is not a sausage fan). As I collected the ingredients, I realized that I had finally managed to reduce our pantry and refrigerator cabinets to the point where we were actually low on (and, in the case of bread, out of) a few key supplies. Bread, eggs, and butter go onto a "crucial items" shopping list that we (by which I mean "my husband") will pick up before the end of the day.  As I head for a second cup of coffee, I add "half and half" to that list. I should note that while I am eating my breakfast I am watching African wildlife including elephants, gazelles, giraffes, hippos, and ostriches moseying around waterholes via one of my favorite livecam websites. It's very relaxing. Also, elephants are pretty much the stoners of the animal world. They just hang around, being all mellow and munching on everything within reach. Good-natured, never in a hurry. Elephants are the best. (Please note that I am not advising anyone to become a stoner. Just an elephant.)

8:30-9:30am: We begin the day with a discussion of whether there are one or two specific assignments that we ought to - or want to - do today. They both have a class meeting this afternoon, so we check the teacher's emails to see if there are specific topics or assignments that will be discussed that we should be sure to complete and/or review. My daughter has a math FlipGrid that she needs to record, and my son is taking a virtual field trip to Sea World. We hit an early snag because her word problem was figuring out the length of a pool based on the length of the "concrete slabs" running alongside it, and she had no idea what a "concrete slab" was. Once I explained and drew her an illustration, she had no problems solving it. Once she finished posting her video, she moved on to working on a comic strip she's been drawing. She is incapable of doing this without a running commentary, so it is probably a good thing that her brother has his headphones on. It is less than I good thing that I do not. I am going back to watching the elephants, It helps.

9:30-10am: My son has moved on to virtually riding roller coasters. Normally, I wouldn't consider this schoolwork, but he likes to analyze the physics of this type of thing, so it counts. My daughter is still absorbed in her comic strip drawing. I am listening to the third book of Hunger Games and procrastinating climbing up to the attic to break down a couple of shelving units and take a final inventory of the stuff that's up there. I tell myself that I'm just waiting for a cooler day, but mainly I'm putting it off because it's distasteful.

10-11am: My daughter continues to draw her comic, but now she's added listening to and singing along with her favorite songs. My son has claimed refuge in another room and is watching Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. I am baking French bread, possibly for the last time in this house. Sniff.

11-11:30am:  My daughter is watching videos for inspiration; my son is googling shark stuff following the AWSC feed, and I have thrown the bread in the oven and will be taking it out just in time for lunch. Something to look forward to!

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. Bread will be eaten and enjoyed.

1-2pm: Both kids have Google Classroom meetings, so I am off duty. I'm sucking it up and braving the attic. It's not as bad as I feared. But it's still pretty toasty, and it reminds me that this Thursday is the last trash pickup before we move, which means there's still a bunch of junk up here that needs schlepping to the curb. But not as much as I'd feared. And mostly it's too heavy for me to carry down the stairs, so it can wait until my husband has a few free minutes. Which means that both the kids and I are done for now! Have a great rest of the day!

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!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 56

By the numbers:
56 days of homeschool so far
13 days until moving day
12 days until we close on the house
8 days of homeschool still to go
5 Zoom/Google Classroom Meets
1 day left until the weekend

Fridays are a mixed blessing for me these days. On the one hand, we're close to the weekend, and once we're done for the day we all give a little sigh of relief. On the other hand, we're sometimes frantically trying to catch up on all the "weekly" tasks that didn't quite get done earlier in the week. Plus, it's the most "scheduled" day we have, which limits our flexibility by giving us multiple hard stops.

The number of school days left is in the single digits; we're down to less than two weeks before we move. Again, a mixture of terror and relief, but mostly simply the light at the end of the tunnel. And so we soldier on. Today, that looked like this:

7-8:30am: Due to last night's pouring rain, it's already a warm and sticky day, with everyone moving a little slower than we might otherwise. But after a breakfast of French toast, we're ready to get dressed and brushed and washed and face the day!

8:30-9am: My son is finalizing his research and writing assignment for his Challenge class, which his teacher will be reviewing with the whole class during his 11am Google Meet. He wrapped it up pretty quickly, then went on to do a Minecraft symmetry project. My daughter asked to start with reading, so she's working on Lexia for her daily 20-30 minutes.

9-9:30am: We looked back over both their weekly and daily assignment lists to see what was left. My daughter opted to do an EstiMystery, followed by her daily Zearn math for 20 minutes, then moved on to independent reading. My son is doing a reading and a video on Nelson Mandela, followed by answering a few questions.

9:30-10am: My son is moving on to Math Playground geometry games, and my daughter is continuing with independent reading.

10-10:30am: My daughter is watching Circle Time with Miss Tracey. Since my son has a trombone lesson at 10:30am, he's saving the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy to watch in its entirety later on, and is doing Zearn until it's time to set up for his lesson.

10:30-11am: My son is having his trombone lesson. My daughter is working on her Epic reading. I am packing our formal china and flatware and padding out the boxes with whatever "soft" things i can find around the house. Small pasta boxes make surprisingly good filler. Also candles. My packing logic has officially switched over from "things that are stored in the same room close by each other" to "whatever fits in the damn box."

11-11:30am: My son has switched over to his Challenge Google Meet. He's wearing his Bluetooth headphones and just wandered down to the basement to put his trombone away while chatting away to his teacher about his project and all I can think of is those annoying people on public transportation who natter away loudly on their Bluetooth earpieces. It doesn't matter in the house, but we'll have to have a chat about headphone and earpiece etiquette as some point. My daughter is working on something called a Graphic Organizer. I didn't really understand her explanation, but it involves the work they've been doing on water conservation combined with some form of organizing information, so I'm just going to assume it's a good thing and not worry about the details.

11:30am-1pm: Phew, lunch break and free time!

1-2pm: My son has a couple of videos to watch for his class, then we finished off by reviewing the states and capitals once again. My daughter has finished all of her regular classroom assignments, so we went back to look at extras like drama, art, and music. There was a science challenge involving watching a video and then carving a rock. The finding and washing the rock has taken 20 minutes, and I suspect the video will take another 15. Based on my daughter's past artistic endeavors, the actual rock carving will either take 30 seconds or all weekend.

My daughter has a dance class from 4:30-6pm, and both kids have an online youth group meeting from 6:30-7:30pm, but other than that, we're off for the weekend! Have a great weekend, everyone!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 55

By the numbers:
55 days of homeschool so far
14 days until moving day
13 days until we close on the house
9 days of homeschool still to go
1 hour until the house cleaners come one last time

I see progress being made! We'll try to keep it going today, although the housecleaners are coming at 9:30, I have a meeting at noon, and my son has an online meeting at 1, so things will be a little uproarious today.

7-8:30am: Get up, get dressed, have breakfast. I did some neatening up around the house and asked both kids to neaten up their rooms, but their idea of "neat" and my idea of "neat" are not the same (and even my idea of "neat" is significantly different than my husband's idea of "neat"), so we'll do some more supervised cleaning when school starts.

8:30-9am: We did a sweep of the house as a group, starting with their individual bedrooms. I gave them a refresher on how to make a bed and had them each make their own. They picked up and put away any clothes that were on the floor (there are ALWAYS clothes on the floor) and tucked toys and shoes in their closets. We cleared the bathroom counter (after doing a moisture check of toothbrushes and making everyone who failed brush their teeth) and made sure there were no toys in the bathtub (there are ALWAYS toys in the bathtub). We walked through the kitchen and the playroom to clean up any junk that was lying around (there is ALWAYS junk lying around), then we gathered our laptops and set up at the picnic table in the back yard, so we would be out of the way for the cleaners.

9-9:30am: My daughter started with Zearn math and then moved on to the Math Playground and Adapted Mind websites after her daily 20 minutes on Zearn was up. Before my son started his work, he read aloud to me a page his teacher posted asking the class to post (anonymously) compliments to their various classmates. Many were sweet, some were funny (one student got a lot of compliments on his "crazy hair"), but all were uplifting. My son was very proud that his classmates described him as smart, helpful, and kind, and I was just as proud. As a kid who had struggled with fitting in with his peers in earlier grades, I was delighted to see how his classmates view him, and I'm sure he was as well. Now he's working through his list of math assignments, starting with "complete the task cards" and then moving on to watching a video about Mahatma Ghandi. There was supposed to be a reading as well, but the link is incorrect. I told him he could do some independent research if he needed additional information to answer the questions at the end of the assignment (which he needed to do).

9:30-10am: My son is back to math with a "pattern blocks" exercise, followed by some "match-up math" challenges. My daughter is reading on Epic. I am being entertained by the antics of the local chipmunks. I am also being serenaded by the local mockingbird, who has been at it steadily since 4:30am. It's rather impressive.

10-10:30am: My daughter is watching a video lesson on fractions and doing some exercises using what she learned. Apparently the video asks them to collect items around the house as illustrations, so she's using rhododendron leaves. My son is watching Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. He's learning about dogfish sharks and I'm having a flashback to my Invertebrate Zoology squalus dissection class in college. But in a good way.

10:30-11am: My son is working on more math exercises posted by his teacher; my daughter is still working on her fractions lesson.

11-11:30am: My daughter is taking a water conservation quiz, then doing independent reading. (She wanted to do Typing Club was for some reason it wasn't loading.) My son is doing his 30 minutes of Zearn for the day.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. I have a Zoom committee meeting at noon so I tried to get the kids fed (or, even better, feeding themselves) before that started. Both kids wandered through the kitchen during my meeting and seemed to linger in the general vicinity of the fridge and/or microwave, so I assume they both fed themselves at some point during the break.

1-2pm: My daughter has an online class meeting; my son and I are working on having him film part of a fundraising video for a regional theatre group that he performed with last year, as Kurt von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Costumes and props are optional, and given that we don't have a lot to work with since most of our belongings are in a POD parked in a storage lot somewhere, we did the best we could with a dress shirt and a borrowed pair of Dad's suspenders and bowtie. (And, as my son noted, a significant amount of Mom-spit-as-hair-pomade.) Both kids were done at around 1:30pm, so my son studied his states and capitals for the rest of the time while my daughter did some additional independent reading.

We're also giving ourselves credit for P.E., because as soon as at least part of the pool is in the shade, we're all going swimming!!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 54

54 days of homeschool down. 10 days of homeschool to go. 14 days until the house closing. 15 days until moving day. Who knows how many days until some facets of life become more normal. In the light of that unknown, it helps to have a few tangible landmarks to look forward to. It also helps to have a written record of what we did (it helps me, anyway), to remind us that we are accomplishing things, that we are keeping to a new normal, that life does continue to move ahead.

Here's the record of what we did today.

7-8:30am: When I came downstairs a little after 7am this morning, my son reported that when he came downstairs sometime earlier, his sister was asleep on the floor of the office. Who knows what time she got up? We're all fueling up on scrambled eggs and toast, so despite the sticky, overcast day, I think we'll be ready to go at the usual hour.

8:30-9:15am: My son is starting with a reading, video, and questions about Cesar Chavez. Like yesterday, it was a short assignment, so when he was done, I quizzed him on state capitals. Unfortunately, the links his teacher provided don't seem to be working, so we did an online quiz together instead. It turned out to be more learning than simple reviewing, but we went section by section and he picked it up quite quickly. It was fun teaching him all the mnemonics I used back when I had to learn the states and capitals (MIchigan is shaped like a MItten, FRankfort is the home of [Kentucky] FRied chicken, Indiana and Ohio look like a pair of wings, etc.). My daughter also started with another video on water conservation, and wrote down her answers to two questions from a list, to be shared at her next Classroom Meeting, tomorrow afternoon.

9:15-10am: My daughter is working on Zearn math for 20 minutes, followed by solving a problem and recording an explanation of how she solved it on FlipGrid. My son is working on Zearn for 30 minutes. While they did that, I took a shower, which was by far the most exciting part of my day. (Not even being sarcastic. It's been a long week.) I let them both take a short break when they finished.

10-10:30am: Miss Tracey's Circle Time and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, of course! After my daughter finished Circle Time, she did her independent reading on Epic for 20 minutes. I worked on purging and packing some items in my pantry. With only 2 weeks or so left before we move, it's a pretty safe bet that we don't need immediate access to, say, 3 jars of mayonnaise, 6 cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup, and 2 boxes of instant mashed potatoes.

10:30-11:30am: My son worked through some of his math assignments, including a video on symmetry, and EstiMystery, and some choices from the 4th grade's "Choice Board." My daughter wrote in her journal and then did an art challenge involving bubbles!

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. It's a gorgeous day so I'm making the kids eat their lunch outside. But with sunscreen on, because I'm still sporting a touch of sunburn from sitting out during last Sunday's church service.

1-2pm: My son's Google Meet with his class has been postponed until 2pm, so I'm taking advantage of the time to have the kids each record a reading of Psalm 100 for the Youth Sunday service at our church in a couple of weeks. This requires looking more presentable than they both do at the moment, so we started by sending them both upstairs to brush their hair and teeth (hopefully both for the second time today, but I do have my doubts some days) and change into a more appropriate shirt. After they recorded, I read then a couple more chapters from "The Long Walk to Water."

2-3pm: My son logged on for his Google Meet, followed by chatting with friends.

3:15-4;45pm: My daughter ended her day with jazz and tap dance classes.

And then we were done!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 53

Two weeks from today is the last day of school.

I don't know about you, but it helps me to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Milestones reassure me that we are making progress, and that time is passing, because sometimes the days blur into one another and it feels like one of those scenes in a horror movie where the main character is walking down a hallway but the door at the end never gets any closer.

The other day the kids and I were reading a chapter from Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, "The House on Plum Creek," and Pa has gone back east to get work. He sends a letter saying that he'll come home in two weeks, so Laura and Mary make hash marks on their school slate to count down the days, and every night when they go to bed, Mary erases one of them. It helps the time pass. I decided that at the two-week mark, we'd do the same thing, (I was torn between using the countdown to the end of school and the countdown until moving day - there's only two days' difference - but I opted for school because, to be honest, it's nearer.) So that will mark the end of the day today.

7-8:30am: I woke up with an arthritis flare in my shoulder that's making it tough to get dressed and get breakfast, so I got a late start and let the kids take charge of their own breakfasts again. My son says he didn't sleep well (not uncommon; he's an insomniac like his mother), so he's having a rough time getting going. And my daughter was wide awake when my husband checked on her when he came to bed a little before midnight. So we'll all be struggling a little today, I suspect. But eventually we all got ourselves dressed (sort of), washed and brushed (sort of), and fed (sort of).

8:30-8:45am: I've finally gotten smart and gotten both kids' school passwords so I can go directly to their teacher's Classroom pages and see their assignments without having to look over their shoulders. I gave them each the choice of starting with either English or math. My son chose English, so I asked him to start with an assignment on Martin Luther King, Jr., that involves doing a reading, watching a video, and then answering some questions. My daughter chose literacy over math, as well, so I had her read the assigned article on conserving water, which included making a list of a few ways that she can conserve water, which the kids will be asked to share at the Google Meet this afternoon.

8:45-9:15am: My son finished the MLK assignment in about 15 minutes, so he's moving on to reading on Lexia for 30 minutes. My daughter is continuing with her water conservation assignment. (It was 100+ ways to conserve, so even though it's a list, it's a fair amount to get through!) She finished up with Typing Club (her favorite).

9:15-10am: My son is moving on to playing math games on Kahoot! and then moved on to Zearn for 30 minutes. My daughter is working on Zearn for 20 minutes, then she'll finish up with some Math Playground games. While they're working on this, I'm slogging through updating my address with a bunch of providers and moving my prescriptions over to a new carrier with the new address. Transitions are hard. Can't do it too early or things will be delivered to someone else's house. Can't do it too late or things will be delivered to an empty house (not a problem for things that get forwarded, but my refrigerated medication would definitely be a problem). I am realizing that the last few days before our move are going to be a zoo. You know, those two days that are the last two days of school? Yeah, those. Aaaanyway...

10-10:30am: We didn't take our usual 10am break yesterday, but I'm making sure they get it today. Miss Tracey's Circle Time (which is actually a book reading today) and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, here we come. My daughter took a short break after Circle Time, then went on to do independent reading. I'm baking bread, since I ate the last piece of French bread for breakfast this morning. Can't be without our fresh French bread these days!

10:30-11:30am: My daughter is working on Math Limbo while my son finishes up AWSC. When he finished, he asked to do a science experiment he found. We didn't have the right supplies, so we went back to the Waltham Robohawks team and did their next experiment: Building a Parachute!

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

1-2pm: My daughter had a Google Classroom Meeting, followed by some informal chatting with classmates. My son had a band rehearsal.

Later in the afternoon, we had another reading session where I read them a few more chapters of "The Long Walk to Water." They didn't want to interrupt their playing to listen, but once we got going, they were both rapt, and when I got to a stopping point and asked if they wanted to hear another chapter, they both wanted to go on. I love it when that happens.

And that was our school day for today!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 52

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit! Happy June! It's the first day of June, the 52nd day of homeschooling, 11 school days (and 15 calendar days) until the end of the school year, and 17 days until we move into our new house. Lots of exciting deadlines and milestones approaching.

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.

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 51

TGIF! We've nearly made it through another week! As usual, we'll spending Friday looking over the week's assignments and making sure we haven't missed anything. We're losing our motivation a little, despite the short week, so once the most important assignments are done we may move on to something more fun, like a science experiment or a baking project. We'll play it by ear.

7-8:30am: Get up get dressed, bake cinnamon rolls, eat them, scrub frosting off of everything, brush hair and teeth.

8:30-9am: My son is working on a research assignment for his Challenge program, involving taking notes and putting them in outline form. I love that he is learning these organizational skills early. He loves to research and discover new information but he tends to just toss it out haphazardly, so it will serve him well to learn to both think through it and present it in a logical, orderly fashion. We hit a HUGE frustration point when the formatting of his Table of Contents kept getting messed up (I can sympathize; I have dealt with this all the time in the past). I tried to convince him to not worry about it and just get the information down on the page and we could format it afterwards, but he couldn't work that way, so I got into the document and formatted it for him, so now he's able to add his information points. Phew, crisis averted. My daughter is working on her Zearn math and also Math Playground. Added degree of difficulty: they're both working at the kitchen table and my daughter has no brain-to-mouth filter so needs to both talk out loud to herself while she works and to add commentary to her brother's questions about his work. I'm torn between wanting to separate them so they get their work done or leave them together so they can practice "real" classroom behavior. For now, I'm leaving them together.

9-9:30am: My son is continuing to fill out his Table of Contents, and my daughter has moved on to reading with Epic. I have retired to the porch to watch both the hummingbirds and the neighbor's new couch being delivered, as well as to get some kind-of-alone time. My introversion is kicking in a little more than usual today. Once my son finished and submitted his Table of Contents, I let him take a quick stretch break, then he chose to continue with a couple of virtual tours of Fenway Park and a lesson on the history of baseball.

9:30-10am: My daughter is working on her favorite, Typing Club, which is a very short assignment. My son reviewed his assignments for the week and he's finished everything. So I told them we can bake anything they want (within reason). They're both surfing around looking for recipes, and trying to agree on one. They debating a number of options, including chocolate chip cake, snickerdoodle muffins, and sugar cookies. They're also checking carefully to be sure we have all the required ingredients.

10-10:30am: We remembered a chapter in one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books where the family made popcorn balls, so we decided to search for a good recipe for those. We finally agreed on this recipe for Old-Fashioned Popcorn Balls! I had forgotten how long it takes to bring sugar to the hard ball stage, so after the kids had combined the ingredients and taken turns stirring for a while, I let my daughter take a break while my son went to get set up for his trombone lesson.

 

10:30-11am: My daughter is continuing her break (she actually writing an animated skit, so it's schoolwork, but she doesn't need to know that), and my son is logging on to his online trombone lesson. I am finishing boiling the sugar syrup and moving on to forming the popcorn balls. I'm not sure if I didn't let the syrup cool for long enough or if I didn't get it quite up to temperature (we don't have a candy thermometer so I used the "dropping a bit into cold water" technique, which has always been less than successful for me), but the popcorn "balls" are more popcorn "blobs," or possibly simply caramel popcorn. Eh, there's popcorn and there's sugar, the kids will be happy.

11-11:45am: My son is moving over to his online Challenge class, and my daughter is working on her FlipGrid math problem.

11:45am-1pm: Lunch break and free time! We enjoyed the popcorn balls as "lunch dessert."

1-2pm: We're watching a British series called "History 101." The first episode focuses on the history of fast food. It's really interesting! It's more of a lesson on nutrition and marketing than history, but it's still worthwhile learning. We went on to watch a second episode about the Space Race, which was also interesting, and much more science- and history-based. Good stuff! We'll be watching more episodes of this series next week.

And that's it for today, and for this week. Have a great weekend, everyone!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 50

Day 50?!?? What a milestone. With a couple of holidays thrown in there, that's more than TEN WEEKS we've been learning from home. Yay for us!

This morning I was up early (I'm always awake early, but rarely up early) and baked some French bread as a thank-you for a friend who is doing my husband a professional favor. (The side benefit being that, since she lives alone and will not be able to finish off two full loaves of bread before they get stale, we get to keep one.) It's a beautiful morning, warm but with a little bit of breeze, and it was lovely to enjoy my coffee quietly and without interruption. Plus, I find kneading bread to be incredibly therapeutic and satisfying. So, the day began on a high note. Let's hope it continues that way!

7-8:45am: Since I was busy baking bread, breakfast was a little later than usual. So I gave the kids a little extra time to eat and then get dressed, brushed, washed, and ready for the day.

8:45-9:30am: I sat with each of the kids to look over their weekly assignment lists and plan out their lessons for the day. They both have their favorite subjects and assignments that they tend to want to do at the expense of other important assignments, so every now and then I need to look at their lists and be sure nothing crucial is being overlooked (inadvertently or on purpose). My son is working on an "angle classification" assignment, followed by ReadWorks, reading "A Slice of Summer." I like this reading assignment because it includes questions to answer and submit to his teacher. My daughter is working on her Typing Club exercises.

9:30-10am: My daughter is moving on to Math Playground and my son is doing independent reading, reading Robin Hood on my Kindle. After my daughter finished, she did some reading on Epic. We also watched a workman on our neighbor's roof using a leaf blower to clear the gutters, because home improvement and maintenance is an important life skill. Also, it was cool to watch.

10-10:30am: What do we always do at 10am? Circle Time with Miss Tracey and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy! Also, I took a shower, because hygiene is important, and also I experienced the king of all night sweats last night. Like, I literally had to go splash cold water all over myself for fear I would actually spontaneously combust. My daughter went on to work on Zearn after Circle Time (which was a short story reading today).

10:30-11:30am: My daughter moved on to Greg Tang math while my son finished up AWSC's presentation on fossils. Then he went on to Finish up a few math worksheets and ReadWorks assignments.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. My neighbor is feeding her baby on the porch and I am blatantly Mrs. Kravitz-ing from my kitchen window. He's singing happily between mouthfuls and waving his arms around wildly and it's the cutest thing ever.

1-2pm: Both kids had a Google Classroom Meet with their teachers. They both finished a little early and then chatted with their classmates online for a bit. The weather's looking a little dicey, so I don't think we'll jump in the pool this afternoon, but if it clears up later I'll send them outside to run around and burn off some energy. But for the moment, we're all kind of being couch potatoes and that's okay, too.

One more day left and this week will be over!! FIFTY AND FABULOUS!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 49

We survived the big push to get the house ready for pictures, so now we're ready to get back to non-feral homeschool! Today should be a much more efficient day than we've had in a while (I hope). Since it's a short week with the Monday holiday plus what little we did yesterday, I'd like the kids to stick to the "core" subjects for today to make sure we don't get behind, and to make sure they've completed anything that should be done before their online class meetings tomorrow afternoon.

So let's get this show on the road!

8:30-9:15am: My son is watching a couple of engineering and science videos posted by his science teacher. He's definitely a STEM guy, so I try to get him to do as much science as possible. At his school, science is only a weekly subject (sadly), so we take advantage of extra science lessons whenever possible. My daughter got a bit of a late start this morning, but when she finally got going at about 8:45, we looked over her daily class assignments and started doing some catch-up work from yesterday. She started with a Greg Tang math game called "Coin Bubble" to practice 10 frames, then she's moving on to do 20 minutes of Zearn math. I'm always happy when she works on math, because that's not her strong suit. I'm staying nearby because she gets easily frustrated when she doesn't understand right away, so I like to try to talk her through figuring it out on her own before she melts down. I've found that one of the biggest difficulties of having smart kids is that when they don't immediately understand something or they're not able to solve a problem with minimal thinking, they get very frustrated. They need a lot of reminding that life doesn't work that way, and the reason we go to school is that nobody understands everything immediately and automatically. That's a harder lesson to learn than you might think. But learning it now will make their lives a lot less frustrating.

9:15-10am:  My daughter is doing one of the dreaded (by me more than her, at this point) FlipGrid math problems. Let's see how smoothly this goes. She got stuck at first because you can't fill in the responses on the screen, but once I got her paper and pencil, it helped. Like me, she tends to be a visual learner and thinker, so problems you solve in your mind are a struggle. Most of our math discussions are not the "nuts and bolts" type, but the "how to understand what the situation is and what they're asking" type. Word problems will always be her bane, but she's learning how to think through them. My son is working on some more logic-based math problems, including figuring out the most efficient placement of security cameras in a housing complex and some other "figure it out but also use math" problems. I like these real-world application math problems.

10-10:30am: Miss Tracey's Circle Time and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Facebook Live programs, as usual. My daughter gets a quick break afterwards, since Circle Time is only about 15 minutes or so. I've started baking a couple of batches of bread, some for us and some to share with neighbors. I've done this "one-hour" recipe so many times now that it really does take me only an hour!

10:30-11:30am: I suggested that both kids do some independent reading on Epic, since most of our books are still packed away for the move. They didn't really get much of a chance to do any reading yesterday, so I'm encouraging them to read for at least 45 minutes and preferably a full hour - and they both went for pretty close to the full hour!

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

1-1:30pm: My son is now taking a turn with Zearn math, and my daughter is starting with Mystery Doug and learning about what causes rainbows. After she finished watching the video, she went outside and sprayed the pool with the hose to make some rainbows of her own. It took a good bit of discussion and experimentation to convince her that she needed to have the sun behind her in order for it to work, but eventually she caught on.

1:30-2pm: My daughter worked on a collection of video logic problems (you have a key to a door; it's to the left of the red door, it's not the door with the #3 on it, etc., which door does your key open?). My son is working on a ReadWorks assignment on the topic of disease spreading.

And with that, we're all ready to jump into the pool to cool off! Have a great afternoon, everyone!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 47

Feral homeschool continues, and I suspect it's about to get even more feral. Although today is the first day in a week that we haven't had some kind of worker around the house that we need to work around, or a specific appointment or task I need to get ready for that day, I'm feeling the pressure of getting/keeping the house clean and cleared for the photoshoot on Tuesday. Since the photographers will be here first thing in the morning, I need to spend Monday doing last-minute things, like washing the windows, vacuuming and dusting everything, scrubbing the bathrooms and kitchen, and clearing out every sign that our family actually lives in this house - including daily-use items like the toaster, the Keurig, our toothbrushes and hairbrushes, etc. This will be tough to do with children underfoot, so even though it's the Memorial Day holiday, I'm considering making it a homeschool day in exchange for Tuesday, when we will all need to be out of the house once the photographers start.

Which is all to say that I'll be fussing around fixing lots of not-quite-last-minute items, like the broken peg on my cheval mirror, steaming the window sheers, ironing the table runner, etc., and will not be doing a lot of chaperoning today. That said, I do expect the kids to do some work today. My son has two scheduled video meets and my daughter has 2 online dance classes, so even if that's all that happens today, they'll have done something. But here's what we attempted:

8:30-9am: I asked my son to spend some time reviewing and completing his assignment for Challenge, which his teacher will be going over at the 11:00am Google Meeting. Last week he swore he had already finished the parts of the assignment that were due today, so I want to be sure he goes back over them to a) refresh his memory, and b) re-read the assignment to make sure it truly is complete. He has a bit of a history of half-reading instructions, especially when he's doing them well ahead of time, and missing part of what's required, so I want to be sure that's not the case, but without helicoptering too much. He moved on to some math puzzles after he finished. My daughter is starting with Epic reading.

9-9:30am: My son is continuing to go through his teacher's assignments for the week and make sure he completed everything. My daughter got a late start on her Epic reading so she's continuing on that.

9:30-10am: My son is doing a project that involves a virtual exploration of the White House. I am learning more White House trivia than I realized there was. (Did you know that it takes 570 gallons of paint to paint the exterior of the White House? Or that it has 35 bathrooms? And 3 elevators? Which my son thinks must have been very handy for Franklin D. Roosevelt.) My daughter is doing a Mystery Doug problem. I am repairing the window dividers, several of which have chosen to jump to their deaths over the past week. I think they know we're leaving them behind and they're being dramatic.

10-10:30am: There was no White Shark presentation today, so my son did Zearn math instead. My daughter watched Circle Time with Miss Tracey, then took a break. I walked around the house, scrubbing every switchplate and outlet cover I could find, then I started on the painted wood trim in the downstairs bathroom, including the louvered door of the linen closet.

10:30-11am: I wasn't watching the time while I was scrubbing so my son was late signing on to his trombone lesson. Oops. He was even more delayed because he has to stop and put on pants. But he got logged on eventually and fortunately, his teacher was still waiting for him. It makes me heart happy listening to him explain the difference between a tie and a slur, and especially just listening to him play. I love that he seems to enjoy making music as much as my husband and I do. I let my daughter goof off for a little longer, then she worked on her Zearn. I'm still in louvered door scrubbing purgatory.

11-11:30am: My son switched over to his Challenge class, and my daughter did independent reading. I gave up on scrubbing the louvered doors, finally accepting that the highest level of cleanliness it was reasonable to expect without a fresh coat of paint is "tolerably grubby." I can live with that.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. You know what? We're done for the day. I'm going to let the kids go for a swim in the pool if they want, or they can just hang out. But they've done enough for today. Happy weekend to all of us! Have a wonderful, safe, and relaxing long weekend, everyone!

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 46

After a late night of carrying boxes down from the attic and packing the POD, combined with a terrible attack of allergies and resulting sinus headache, I didn't roll out of bed until 8:00 this morning. Which is around when the truck arrived to pick up the POD. So our day started, not with breakfast, but with a cool physics and engineering lesson.

We all watched the driver maneuver the lifting frame carefully around the POD, and then lift it off the ground as easily if it were still empty. Then he neatly backed the truck up underneath it, lowered it down, and drove away. See you next month, POD!

8:45-9:15am: The kids were starving by then, so I made them some scrambled eggs and grilled toast (one of their new favorite treats) and let them start school late.

9:15-10am: My daughter is working on a Typing Club assignment and my son is reading about "She Persisted." They're both sprawled out in the middle of our now-empty finished basement. It's not the classroom situation any of us would have imagined a few months ago, but it's working.

10-10:30am: My son watched his usual Shark Conservancy program, but I needed to work on my laptop and Circle Time was pre-recorded today, so my daughter did some reading instead and I'll have her watch Circle Time later.

10:30-11:15am: My son is having trouble with his headphones (the wires are loose), so I gave him a roll of black electrical tape and challenged him to repair them himself. My daughter is working on a Happy Birthday sign for a friend. My son joined in to help after he finished fixing his headphones. It was hilarious listening to their discussion while they worked. They've been going through all their favorite video games and TV shows and discussing their relative merits and well as which characters are their favorites. It's nice listening to them getting along so well (mostly). They were still having fun at 11:00, so I let them keep going. We all need a low-pressure day today.

11:15am-1pm: We took an extra-long lunch break today. Both kids helped their dad do some work around the yard, including watering the plants using the garden hose, which they both love to do.

1-2pm: Thursday is the one day a week that they both have Google Classroom Meetings, and both at 1pm. So I got them launched on those and got to work mending some broken window dividers and a few other small projects on my to-do list. When I'm done with that, I'm going to bake some French bread that we can have with our chili for dinner tonight. And once all that is chugging along, doing its thing, I'm going to take a nap in the sunshine! [Note: Said nap ended up in my actual bed and lasting 2 hours. Sometimes you just need to listen to your body.]

At dinner time, my husband declared that our pool was officially ready for swimming, so the kids spent most of the evening splashing and swimming and jumping into the water like a pair of otters. It reminds me how happy I am that the new house also has a pool.

Summary for today: We did a little schoolwork, we did a little housework, we got a little exercise, some of us got a little nap, nobody killed anybody else. It was another good day in Quarantine Land.

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 45

Today's Challenge of the Day: Our wonderful housecleaners, who have been not been able to come clean for us for several months, have agreed to come and do a deep-clean of the house prior to putting it on the market. So today, we'll be working around them. I think we can manage hanging out in the basement while they clean the rest of the house, and then when they're ready to work down here, we can either move outside (it's an absolutely glorious day at the moment) or the kids can go up to their bedrooms.

As for me, I'm not sure what I'm going to work on today. Most of the tasks remaining on my to-do list will be difficult or impossible to do without getting in the way of the cleaners, so I'll put them on hold. I'm having a huge attack of allergies - I woke up my poor husband in the middle of the night with a combination of repeated throat-clearing, approximately 23 sneezes in a row, and blowing my nose what felt like a hundred times - so I have a feeling I'm going to be somewhat useless today anyway, so I may treat it as a rest and recovery day and give myself permission to be useless.

The kids, however, are slowly learning to manage their time and get some assignments done. Here's the schedule we ended up with today.

7-8:30am: Get up, have a quick breakfast. I gave them a 5-minute warning before I cleared all the bread and the microwave from the counter but no-one took advantage of it so breakfast turned out to be a premade frozen breakfast sandwich for one child and chicken nuggets for the other. Who says you have to have breakfast food for breakfast? Judging by the state of their hair, no-one made it to the "brush hair and teeth" stage, but they're both dressed, so not the hill I'm dying on this morning.

8:30-9am: My daughter read me some of her journal up to this point (it's mostly descriptions of her friends and classmates), then went on to write more in it. I encouraged her to write more about what it's like doing homeschool, including what she likes and dislikes about it. My son is doing a project on ReadWorks. I am drinking coffee and blowing my nose. I suspect I'll be doing this a lot today.

9-9;30am: My daughter has moved on to read a book on Epic. This one happens to be on harp seals and has a lot of photographs, so there is much squealing. She continued on with one about pandas and there was even more squealing. She'd love to read a real paper book, but unfortunately most of those are packed at this point. I do appreciate that as much as both children enjoy reading, they generally prefer a physical book to an e-book when they read to themselves. especially my daughter. I love my Kindle books, but there's nothing like physically turning the pages of a paper book. I may have thrown away a lot of CDs and DVDs in favor of "cloud" media, but like Captains Kirk and Picard, I will never lose my love for actual books.

My son is now reading a book on Epic as well, this one being assigned by one of his teachers.

9:30-10am: My daughter hemmed and hawed for a while trying to decide what she wanted to work on next. She decided to work on Typing Club, which I am learning is one of her favorite assignments. My son is doing his daily 20 minutes of Zearn. He is also sitting in a rolling desk chair, which he is rolling around the room while he works so...P.E. credits, too?

10-10:45am: Both kids are watching their Facebook Live programs; my daughter with Miss Tracey's Circle Time, and my son with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. Since my daughter borrows my laptop to watch, I'm going outside to soak up some sunshine and look for hummingbirds. I hear that vitamin D is good for COVID-19 prevention.

10:45-11:30am: My son worked on some more math and a few other assignments. My daughter goofed around for a while and eventually worked on some assignment. I don't know. I was catching up on to-do lists and trying to stay out of the cleaners' way.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time. My husband had to bring the carpet cleaner back to Home Depot (and return a set of attic stairs that were the wrong size), so he stopped by D'Angelo's and brought us all subs for lunch. I had no idea how much I was craving their Thanksgiving sub until I was licking gravy off my chin.

1-2pm: I fell asleep in my daughter's room. I have no idea what they did. Possibly schoolwork.

My husband and I spent the rest of the evening and well into the night doing a virtual staging walkthrough with our realty team and packing up the POD for pickup tomorrow.

We ended the day with much-deserved champagne.

So how was YOUR day today??

COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 43

We're in the home stretch for getting the house packed and staged: Over the weekend, I organized and purged the attic, we continued packing boxes and putting them in the POD, and we cleared out and cleaned up the pool and backyard. Yesterday we rented a carpet cleaner and I cleaned the first half of each of the three bedrooms. Today I'll move the furniture and do the other side of those three rooms and hopefully also the basement carpet, and also the Fire Department will (may? there's a little confusion on the scheduling there) come and hopefully give us a certificate of compliance for the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Tomorrow the tile guys will come back and finish replacing the tiles in the kitchen and patch a few spots of cracked and missing grout in the kitchen and guest bathroom. Wednesday our housecleaners will come and do a deep clean throughout the whole house. And on Thursday, the POD will be picked up and - weather permitting - the Matterport photographer will come and photograph the whole house in order to create a 3D "virtual tour".

Which is all to say that I'm letting the kids pretty much go feral in regards to homeschool today, and probably for the rest of the week as well. I have asked them to work on their Google Classroom assignments from 8:30-10am, at which time they may watch their usual Facebook Live presentations and then take a quick break. From 10:45-11:30am, they should both continue with school assignments. They should take a lunch break from 11:30am-1pm, including getting their own lunch. Although if I'm taking a lunch break at the same time I might give in and make them something like scrambled eggs or macaroni & cheese, just because I'd happily eat that as my own lunch. And finally, my son has a Google Meeting with his class at 1pm that will finish up his day, and my daughter can continue with her classroom work. I have also asked them both to keep a record of what they work on and at what time. We'll see how well that works out.

As for me, I spent several hours moving the furniture to the other side of the bedrooms so I could clean the remainder of the carpets, and I also cleaned the first half of the basement carpet. Hopefully that carpet will be dry enough by the end of the afternoon that I can finish cleaning the rest of the basement carpet so we can return the cleaner, but if not, we'll just keep it an extra day and finish it tomorrow morning.

Next I'm going back up to the attic for the final sweep of purging and organizing up there. The majority of what's up there is nicely organized in bins that will be easy to have the movers take care of, but I'd love to get most of the un-binned (or at least un-boxed) items into the POD. Being campers, we have 5 or 6 rolled sleeping bags and 2 or 3 tents in bags. Being big Christmas decorators, we have several train sets and a Christmas village set in giant cardboard boxes, a 3-foot high wooden Nutcracker that's only wrapped by being covered with a kitchen trash bag, several wreaths in boxes, and a large and heavy artificial tree in its cardboard box. There's a large stack of framed pictures and large mirrors. And there are some random items, like a large HEPA filter, a tabletop humidifier, a bunch of hula hoops, and several collections of theatre costumes in oversized hanging bags.

In addition, I remembered that the closet under the stairs needed to be sorted. It was full of bag after bag of CDs that we had taken off our bookshelves in the living room a few years ago but couldn't quite bear to part with yet. Four heavy-duty 55-gallon drum liners later, we've borne the parting. I also discovered that my husband has a secret stash of tennis rackets, I found where the two-person camp chair was hiding, and I also discovered where the hamster had made her nest when she escaped last Christmas while we were on vacation.

I've also created a new packing category called simply "Long Things," which includes a hockey stick, a projection screen, a particularly tall folding camp chair, two rolls of plastic picnic table covers, and my husband's camera tripod.

I'm torn between feeling accomplished that I keep finding stashes of things to sort, purge, and pack, and feeling terrified that we'll never finish the job in time, or at least that we'll have more stuff than the movers can fit on the truck. I just keep telling myself that I drive a minivan and we're moving less than half an hour away, so as long as the movers take the big stuff, we can always come back for the smaller bits and pieces.

As for the kids, I think they did some schoolwork today, and they didn't kill each other or stop me from getting stuff done. So...yay! Good day.