Friends: Day 3 of COVID-19 home schooling went well academically, but the toughest part about today is that Travis misses his friends. It breaks my heart that our playgrounds are empty, that our children cannot play together, despite the importance of it. Who says we are turning into a virtual culture? It’s clearer to me than ever that kids need other kids physically. To that end, we made sure to do a Skype with a buddy from school. Travis’s teacher also sent a video of herself reading a book. These “face-to-face” interactions were crucial, and I hope you are all finding ways to do them. At one point he just crumpled into tears, missing his buddies, and I held him for a long time. I am sending virtual strength to all, and here was our day!

7: We slept in! Home school is exhausting.

7.30-9: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

9-10: ELA. Today we read a favorite book (Ralph Tells a Story), and when it was finished we talked about who the characters were, specifically the main character versus secondary characters. Travis loved doing his Lexia games while I played a quick game with baby sis!

10-10.30: Recess and snack.

10.30-11: Math. After playing a “Number Squeeze” game online, we made a hands-on version.

Travis had so much fun drawing monster faces, which we then taped to straws to “squeeze” our way to each number, using the concepts of greater than and less then.

11-12: While baby sister napped, Travis and I made a batch of homemade playdough. This alone was great fun, and then we used the playdough to write his name.

He wanted to make all capital letters first to avoid curves, but then got a little more confident and tackled a few lower case letters.

12-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: His special today would have been “Library,” so we sat down for a story (I made sure Veronika had a few tactile books to go through, beside us), then listened to two episodes of the Kids Ask Authors podcast.

Finally, we modified the StoryMarch concept here; we printed pictures of six of the word prompts and lined them up in various ways. Each time the pictures were in a different order, we made up a different story about them!

2-3: Frankly, Travis was exhausted this afternoon and I barely got him to focus. So instead of energetic physical movement, we did a “Chillax” video from GoNoodle. For science, we read a book about bugs, and watched a quick video about the first day of spring.

We capped off the day with a walk outside to take advantage of the nice weather, and looked for signs of spring. Travis was so proud when he spotted buds, or flowers coming up.

After hitting the ground running yesterday, today felt a little more like a walk. Maybe because I only got 4 hours sleep, maybe because Tuesdays are only a half day in our town, so we didn’t pack in as much. But without further ado, here’s what we joyfully tackled!

6.30-8.30: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

9-10: Circle time, ELA. After a quick moment to check in by our calendar, we jumped into ELA for the day. Travis’s class has been working on writing a story with two parts, and his centered around Anakin Skywalker of course.

We reviewed the sight words his class has learned (to the tune of “B-I-N-G-O”), then practiced writing them in shaving cream! Travis didn’t want to get his fingers messy, but a wooden skewer worked perfectly. Where was my toddler, meanwhile? Busy getting dressed.

10-10.30: Snack/recess. It was a snowy raw day, so we only briefly ventured outside before “indoor recess” and a quick bite.

10.30-11: Travis listened to two stories from Storyline Online (a great resource!), then we took some time to compare the two and discuss their differences and similarities. He finished off the half hour with about 15 minutes on Lexia.

11-11.30: Math. We played Go Fish using number cards, which is great for reading pips and numerals. To make it physical we turned it into Go Fitness Fish. Each match was assigned an activity, like yoga tree pose for matching 2s, or jumping jacks for matching 3s.

This had us laughing and super active! (It helped that my toddler was napping). We finished off with a page of How High Can a Dinosaur Count.

11.30-12.30: He was hungry early! We watched yesterday’s episode of Lunch Doodles with Mo Williams since we were too early for today’s 1 p.m. showing. Travis was so proud of his many -legged creature!

12.30-1: In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we listened to Irish music provided by the school’s Music teacher. This had both kiddos doing reels and jigs!

1-1.30: We finished with a quick lesson on American Sign Language, and a quick “science” book about the human body, but then called it quits.

Normally, he has a Tuesday acting class. To ease his disappointment that the final performance is now cancelled, we staged it at home, obligatory costume for little sister included of course.

This had him laughing and so happy, and was the highlight of the day. A round of Kids Charades kept up the acting play to round out his afternoon.

See you for another full day tomorrow!

Friends! I have always considered myself a hands-on mom and a crafty mom, but to all you home school moms out there: RESPECT. I find myself now in this position due to COVID-19, so… here goes nothing!

What were the biggest challenges I discovered in Day 1? Simultaneously caring for a 16 month old, and keeping Travis focused. To that end, I sprinkled in a few projects to keep Veronika busy, and used her nap strategically for when Travis needed me by his side the most.

Biggest takeaway from Day 1? Tomorrow we’ll have a firm policy of home toys packed away when school is in “session”, to avoid distraction. Also, it was clear that my kids perform best early in the day. Front-loading activities meant that I could dole out afternoon lessons with a little more space in between, which definitely suited the rhythm of our household.

Without further ado, here’s how our day went!

6.30-8.30: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

8.30-9: Circle Time and Spanish. Sticking with his normal routine, we sat down and went through the calendar, the weather, and the day of the week. Then we sang along to a Spanish song from his teacher on You Tube, and he worked on a Spanish coloring page. (Lil sis played with big swings!)

9-10: ELA. We “tapped out” his four words of the day on our fingers, then read a story (The Name Jar), focusing on what happened at the beginning, middle, and end. Then he did 20 minutes on the Lexia website (I stole a moment to bake bread!).

10-10.15: Snack time.

10.15-10.45: Recess! Get outside and dig in the dirt.

10.45-12: Math/quiet time. Travis worked on his school’s math website for a dot matching game that emphasized the concepts of “more than”, “less than”, and “equal to”. He loved the game! We also tackled the problems on one page of How High Can a Dinosaur Count, a fantastic book we already have at home. Baby sister now needed me, so it was a good time for quiet activities like drawing a picture of his favorite thing and working on tangram puzzles.

12-1: Lunch/free play. It was nice to give him some downtime!

1-1.30 – PE! This would have been his “special” today, so we juggled with socks, then had a family dance party to Can’t Stop the Feeling. We finished up with a few dances from Go Noodle that really got us moving and had both kids laughing!

1.30-2: Arts and Crafts. We made pompom puppets.

2-2.30: Pulling from books we already have at home, today we read Usborne’s Big Book of Stars and Planets.

2.30-3: Board game. We finished off the day with some group fun, and today Travis selected Animal Bingo. You can see the kids were silly by this point!

Class dismissed! We headed out for a family walk and some fresh air, which turned into fantastic fun with Travis “racing” me and the stroller to each mailbox. We returned full of vigor and ready for an afternoon snack.

Yikes, I am exhausted but ready for tomorrow. How is your family faring under social distancing? Please share in the comments; let’s all unite virtually in this unprecedented time!