Teachers, I bow to you. I don't know how you do it. I only had five (drink*) kids to organize as opposed to an entire classroom, and I'm fried. It was "back to school" today, albeit through virtual meetings and assignments. The Monomoy School district did an out(drink) standing job of organizing the "new normal" - quite honestly, I don't know how they pulled it all together so quickly. I wish I was able to organize my household with such smooth efficiency.
Abigail and Paige were stationed upstairs and navigated the new system pretty seamlessly with very little intervention on my part. In fact, when I went to check on them, I was told to leave the room, lest a classmate see me in the background. Apparently I'm (drink) embarrassing. The challenges arose when Kaleb's class meeting began and the microphone on our computer malfunctioned. I had printed some worksheets for the twins to entertain them, knowing I would have to (drink) focus my attention on the boy, but my plan backfired because they had about a million questions about the trace-the-letter exercise I thought was pretty (drink) self explanatory and when I attempted to defer their questions, one of them ran upstairs declaring I didn't care about her. (drink)
So. As I mentioned yesterday, the bribes began pretty early in the day. Finishing an assignment was rewarded with gushers (those disgusting fruit sugar snacks), or going outside for "recess". (Drink) I learned that the twins, despite not actually having a pre-k curriculum to follow wanted to join in the "fun" of home schooling, continually asking what's next on the schedule as I brainstormed "assignments" for them. These ranged from cleaning the basement for home ec to story time and a whole lot of free time which seemed to appease them as long as their (drink) usual playtime was categorized as an item on the school schedule.
You don't stop to think when you embark on your first stint as a home school teacher that you don't have support staff like reading specialists, phys ed teachers, and most importantly, in my case, the lunch lady. I'm fortunate that James only works mornings, so was able to assist (drink) much of the day, but even the two of us were spread pretty thin over five kids.
The day culminated with a family science experiment (drink) thanks to all the You Tube Cynthia has been watching. According to her, there's some kind of Coke/Mentos volcano trick which I was oblivious to, but every other kid in the family (drink) had done in real live school. Despite the rain, we gathered on the porch and watched as James dropped Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke creating a somewhat anticlimactic (drink) eruption of soda.
The day was a juggling act, but (drink), there were far less "I'm bored's". Those were replaced with "it's no fair's" courtesy of Kaleb who endlessly compared his itinerary to that of the twins and couldn't understand why a third grader can't play all day like them. No fair.
Unlike these last few days, though, I didn't find him flailing around the floor with lack of anything better to do. Why do kids do this? Literally, he's like a fish on the kitchen floor, just kind of lopping around whining that nobody wants to play and (drink) he's hungry - even though he just ate lunch. I vaguely remember doing this as a kid so I assume it's just a thing kids do. But maybe it's just a weird Meyer thing, though obviously not genetic, so do other kids do this too?
I'm sure everyone hit some snafus as we, as parents, embarked on a home schooling adventure we never signed up for. But, and not to lay a guilt trip on anyone, we weren't called to war, we are home with our kids, doing the best we can to continue their education without strangling them. (Drink) And while I always held teachers on a pedestal, I have a whole new respect for the service they provide our children. Kudos...and (drink).
*Why do you see the word "drink" peppered throughout this post? For further explanation please read the facts on my home page. If you find it distracting....I can relate. Cheers!