Monday, August 31, 2020

First Week of School

We survived our first week back to school!
I say survived it because honestly it is hard.  I think it is going better than last year, but I still feel like I'm running from child to child putting out fires all day.  There are so many log ins and links and things similar things that the kids need help with that are computer related.  

Scarlett and Leon are signed up to go to the public school, but right now it is all online.  We are hopeful that they will switch and go full time in person soon, but that is all dependent on how many COVID cases are in the area and on base.  Tucker and Penelope homeschool and Tucker does take band at the actual middle school, which is online for now.

Anyway, I spend a significant amount of time helping Scarlett and Leon with the computer, or making sure that they are on at the correct times (4 different times a day for each of them).  I also have to reteach many things to them that I know their teachers just explained.  Sometimes they can't read the directions on the work that their teacher gives them, so I need to do that as well.  I do think I spend more time helping them but is is less effective than if I just did our regular homeschool stuff with them.  But I keep doing it because I am hopeful that they will go in person soon.
That being said, so far it both Scarlett's and Leon's teachers seem great.  It's hard to tell because we haven't really met, but we don't have any objections or reasons to be concerned.  They both seemed happy about their jobs and eager to teach their classes.
Tucker is doing well with his homeschool.  It is pretty much business as usual for him.  He doesn't need a lot of my time so he isn't as affected by me not being available.  He did forget a lot of his math and couldn't really remember how to do any of his Algebra.  I can't blame him because we stopped in the middle of the book.  But I really don't remember how to do his math as I have never done it after I left school.  So every night after dinner Bob and Tucker have been doing math together.  By the end of the week he pretty much had it down.  This week he is practicing it some more, but with less help, and next week he will move on to the next lesson.
Penelope moved up a level on our English curriculum which is sort of a transition for her.  It is not too hard of a level for her, but this book is geared for her to read and complete.  It is self directed but most lesson will say things like, "Read the following passage to your parent or teacher."  or, "complete... and show your parent or teacher."  Where her previous ELA I sat down with her the whole time and guided her through.  I'm happy she can do this level because it frees up time for me.  But she is struggling a little bit with what to do.  It isn't that she gets distracted but more that she won't know the exact answer or what to do exactly and she has a really hard time guessing.  I think she is just scared of getting it wrong or doing it wrong.

We got up a little early to take the first day of school pictures.








This is such a crazy year to start school for everyone.  I'm curious to see how things turn out.


1 comment:

Mary-Anne said...

This year really is so weird. Good luck!