Here we are – 2021 – and I’m still waiting for Eli to be back in school. *sigh* Part of me guessed the school was going to announce they were remote right after the new year, but it still stung when the announcement came in. 2 more weeks of remote school BUT at least this time we have a teacher who is doing live Google meets 2x a day and lots of hands-on worksheets, instead of just apps to fill…
Homeschool. Sigh. Will it ever end??? Yes, yes it will in fact end TOMORROW to be exact. Not that I’m counting. Wait. That’s a lie. Where most people have countdown to Christmas calendars going this time of year, I’ve had a countdown to “the end of homeschooling a first grader who spun around in his desk chair and loudly told me he was bored while in a live Google meets chat with his virtual teacher and classmates.” That’s the kind…
I’m sitting here typing this blog entry by the glow of twinkling blue, pink, gold, and green lights…Christmas lights. On a Christmas tree. Fully decorated with ornaments. That’s a little peek into how homeschooling went today. It was a 3-day school week last week due to parent-teacher conferences (don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of no VIRTUAL school for a VIRTUAL conference held at 7pm!) and this week there was no school on Tuesday because the school building…
We were blessed with an “Indian Summer” this fall when temperatures went back into the 70’s after being in the 50’s. The sunshine was beautiful, but I’m such a fall/cold weather person that I would have been happy just staying in the 50’s. Oh well! Since we had beautiful weather, we played outside a lot and did a homeschool hike that turned into a Halloween-rock-hiding-hike. So much fun! Did I ever tell you about the time I gave painted rocks…
Sunday, I spent about 3 hours working on Eli’s school lesson plan for the week, so I knew exactly how Monday was going to unfold….and it was spot on! Up until this point, school work took roughly 2 hours total each day and when I say school work, I really mean school review what I already know. Well, after talking with a couple other moms of first graders at different schools, I realized just how little Eli was doing with…
We are one week away from moving and my house looks like a warehouse of boxes and smells like cardboard, but today, I am grateful for boxes – the perfect medium for building a wall! My children love each other, and most of the time even like each other, but today it seems they can’t look at each other, be within 5 feet of each other, or hear each other without feeling the need to report it to me. Ava:…
With the amount of protesting Eli does every time I ask him to write a sentence, one would think I was asking him to walk across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope while blindfolded with a monkey on his head – no way! Nope! Can’t do that! Kryptonite is to Superman what a pencil is to Eli, but since his letter formation is atrocious, his sentence structure is atrocious, and his spelling is atrocious, writing is the one thing he…
I decided that every week needs to have something fun in it that also relates to school because I don’t want Eli and Ava to think school is all about doing worksheets and computer programs. Being with friends is an equally crucial part of school, but since that isn’t happening right now, I decided to bring a little socialization to our homeschool room! Introducing Baking with Math…Colleen’s Cooking Classroom….Kitchen Math….something like that. Haven’t settled on the name just yet, but…
I woke up this morning with an attitude of gratitude ~ thankful for cool weather moving in, our house move coming along, and the ability to snuggle in bed with my two little sidekicks tucked under each arm. Then, I remembered it was Monday. School day. Ahhhhh!!! But, today I was armed with a new schedule and worksheets that I had prepped over the weekend, and Sam had the incentive of all incentives for Eli to finish his work quickly…
I am so thankful for the “mom tribe” in my life and the ladies who are in the virtual learning trenches with me right now! These are the ladies who feel my pain when Eli and Ava are spinning in their desk chairs…because their kids are doing the same thing! Well, one of these fabulous ladies hosted us for a science afternoon at her house. Woohoo! Away from the computer screens and enjoying the outdoors doing actual experiments. There were…