Days 6 & 7: COVID-19 Whatever You Call This Time at Home with Kids

I’ve been calling what we were/are doing with our kids homeschool. I get it that it’s not homeschool because what homeschool parents do is way cooler than anything I’m coming up with and includes field trips (although digital field trips now abound). So, whatever it is we’re doing, we’re all doing the best we can and we should all pat ourselves on the back and give ourselves (and others) more grace.

If I can say anything, my advice is to try to find fun and laughter in anything and everything. Examples:

• Your kid feeds the fish a whole jar of fish food and tries to paint it yellow- there’s some humor there (or was until said fish died).
• Your toddler asks you if you get to stay home tomorrow. Why, yes, we sure do!
• You get on a meeting with someone and notice (too late) that you’ve got a big booger hanging out, your hair is a wreck and you forgot makeup because you’re working from home.
• You laugh when you realize that you have no idea how to do math problems the way your third grader does them.
• You save works from drowning with your kids
• You laugh and smile when they dig a ditch in your backyard (and are now covered in mud).

I wish I wrote down all of the hilarious things that happen here since we’re all together. I bet you feel the same way.

Here’s a few highlights from our first few days this week, although you can see the full checklist of this week’s activities here:

Day 5:

• We started the day out with eating the (almost finished) rock candy.
• Will worked on a slide presentation for the Sons of Liberty and has impressed me with his awesome tech skills
• Anna has been doing math but we’re struggling and hoping to figure out how to do remote tutoring since me helping isn’t doing the trick.

• Clara and Kate have been reading a “Play Time” reader and pretty much have it memorized.

• Yesterday we did rhyming worksheet too with the littles, using the new Paw Patrol pencils from MaMa.
• We all learned about space from Scholastic Learn at Home– Pre-K Day 4. It’s a great resource for all grades.
• Played outside a lot but not enough because everyone still seemed to be wound up last night at bedtime.
• Anna got to have a zoom chat with both her class and also with her Girl Scout troop last night, which was super fun.
• We played one of our favorite family games- Trash Panda.
• The girls got to listen to several books Mammy recorded and even FaceTime with MaMa, while she read to them.

Day 6:

• Today was a super fun day.
• Will got a special sign dropped off from his awesome teacher.

• Since the weather was absolutely gorgeous, we worked on schoolwork outside. I loved getting to do this in elementary school.
• Everyone got their morning assignments done super quickly so they could go play.
• Will finished up his presentation today and had a zoom call with his class today
• All of the kids made their own personal pizzas for lunch
• For dessert we had Oreos and learned about the phases of the moon using this experiment as a reference and this worksheet to place the Oreos. I’m not sure how much they actually learned but we sure enjoyed the Oreos!
• We watched Magic School Bus- Gets Lost in Space and the bigs did this worksheet that went with it.
• Anna also wrote an amazing essay on the solar system, which made us super proud!

• Garen created an awesome obstacle course in the yard for the kids.
• We went for a nice long walk/bike ride around the block after dinner.

I think Garen and I are doing a decent job with this. We’re for sure not a replacement for our kids’ teachers though. I won’t lie, it’s been hard.

Both of our companies supply commercial construction contractors so our businesses are (thankfully) considered “essential” and are still both fully functional. I have both guilt about not doing the “full time mom” thing right now but also about taking calls with yelling children in the background or sending someone to voicemail if I’m in the middle of a word problem we’re struggling to finish.

With that said, we are very grateful for our jobs, that our companies both are contributing to the economy, and the ability to work from home when so many can’t. I guess it’s worth the grey hairs that are appearing faster every day!

Happy Day 6 y’all!