It was a busy one! And honestly, I’m finding that the busier a home school day is, the better, in that it keeps us all from going stir-crazy. Please note that when I delineate the day by hours, we’re not spending a full hour on each subject. Rather, it’s generally closer to 20 minutes per topic; then Travis fits in some free play, or zones out for a bit, and I can do a few chores around the house or change a diaper or whatever it is that needs doing in life before we move on to the next block of time. I’ve found it helpful to think of the day in these hour chunks, though, and I hope it’s helpful to other novice Covid-19 home school parents, too!

9-10: ELA. We started out with a sight-word poem, and Travis was so proud circling or underlining all his sight words. Then we acted it out, lots of jumping and clapping and smiles!

Next up was a lesson on syllables: We clapped out words and circled the correct number of syllables for each.

To make it interactive, play syllable hopscotch! Make a board on your floor with masking tape (or outside with chalk if it’s sunny), up to 4 levels high.

Draw cards from a pile and jump the proper number of spaces. This was fun for a few rounds, and then of course the kids had more fun pulling up all the tape.

10-10.30: Math. With the assignment to sort a toy by color, Travis chose Magnatiles and was avidly interested to see which color “won”. Then we colored in a graph with the results.

We then played a round of a card game called Garbage, which teaches kids to recognize where a number fits in on a line from 1 to 10. “Mom, this is really fun!” he said. So a win!

10.30-11: Snack/free play (indoors due to rain).

11-11.30: Science. After watching a video on how to make a collage, Travis made one with our recyclables. He was initially fussy but then confessed he doesn’t like collages because of messy glue. So we used tape, and he got so into it!

11.30-12: Social studies. We made a thank you card for First Responders in our area as part of his school’s initiative. I was proud to teach him about local heroes in this moment.

12-1: Lunch/free play.

1-1.30: Spanish. His teacher’s suggestions had us laughing and moving today, including a game of “Simon dice” (Simon Says), to learn Spanish verbs. He sang me his Spanish days-of-the-week song and hunted for three objects in the house that that were “azul.”

1.30-2: Music. By the time we got around to his Thursday special, Travis was tired and grumpy and didn’t like that class felt “different” online. Basically I let the teacher’s class stream in the background while he played.

2-3: We finished on a high note with an indoor fort!

This was the perfect place for puzzles, quiet “reading”, and just being silly with baby sister. Hopefully the weather is nice enough for a walk, tomorrow, because we all need it.