Before I jump into our March homeschooling post, I thought I'd add this tidbit of humor here at the beginning. You see, Lydia has been learning how to type this year and I was sitting with her one day just giving her some moral support and talking to her about how important it was to just memorize where your fingers go because that make it so you can type really quickly. I consider myself a pretty good typist, so imagine my surprise when I sat down to type with Lydia to show her and I realized that I don't use my left pinkie finger to type. At all. Never. My ring finger on my left hand covers ALL of the keys. All of them. Even moves down to the shift key when it's needed. If I need to do a capital Q, I hold the shift key with my ring finger and push the Q key with my middle finger. It's ridiculous really. My pinkie finger just hangs in the air like it's afraid to get in the way. I then thought that maybe I'm not as good at typing as I think I am - so I took a typing test. 77 words per minute! Woot! I feel pretty darn good about that- pinkie finger or no pinkie finger.
David and I laughed and laughed about it. He took a typing test, too, but I didn't take a picture and now I can't remember what his official speed was, but it was really high, too. Thank goodness we can type so quickly or we would NEVER get through all of the blogging that we are trying to keep up with.
Okay, back to the regular homeschool shenanigans.
Actually hold that thought. If you've read the rest of our posts from March 2020, you'll know that things have been significantly different around here this month due to the spread of Covid-19. Basically everything has shut down and we are no longer homeschooling, we are "Crisis-Schooling", along with everyone else in the State/County/World. All of the public schools have shut down and kids are at home with their families. Teachers are trying to teach classes/send work home virtually and parents are having to step in and "homeschool" their kids. I have SUCH mixed feelings about this. At first, I felt so happy. Just, joyously happy, for the opportunity that so many families were going to have to slow down their lives, spend more time together, build their relationships, and get a peek at the blessings of homeschool! But I've also felt really defensive, especially as so many parents have been so vocal about how much they dislike having their kids at home and how awful homeschooling is. It's such a tricky balance. I've felt the need to defend my own life choices as people have made comments like "I don't know how you do this, it's so much work/so hard etc.." I've tried to support people with encouragement while recognizing that they didn't choose this path and that it was thrust on them suddenly and that change is hard for anyone.
And we've had to deal with a lot of ramifications of Covid-19, too. Lydia had to stop taking her horseback riding classes. We were planning to do a ninja-gymnastics class in April - cancelled. We had to stop going to Cal & Sue's house every Tuesday because they are so high risk. My kids aren't allowed to play with our neighbors and have to come in from riding their bikes when other kids come into the front yard. We are missing all of our spring hikes when other kids are usually still in school - but now I'm too worried to hit the trails, especially as they are packed with people as we are all trying to navigate this new bizarre life. We can't go to the zoo or the library. Can't go to stores or restaurants. No homeschool coops, playdates with friends, ANYTHING.
And so, we aren't really homeschooling either. Because homeschool is absolutely not about being schooled in a bubble. It's about experiencing the world together, with friends, with family, in nature. Museums, books, coops, parks, sunshine, friends, family members, FRIENDS! We are crisis-schooling, too. It took me some time to absorb that and to give myself the leeway to change our own coursework and schedule. Many people have said "It's so nice that you don't have to change anything", but actually that's really not true. There is so much stress and uncertainty, we've had to slow things down, too, and just focus on the most important things.
But even with that being said. Homeschooling is such a blessing. Our lives have changed, but we haven't faced major upheaval. Inconvenience, yes. Uncertainty, yes. Change, yes. But not devastating upheaval. We've been blessed and I am incredibly grateful that the Lord led us to homeschooling, even if it was just for this time, right now. We've got our course set and we are pushing forward, happily enjoying the extra time we get to spend with our little family here.
Here are some highlights:
-My dad came to watch Lydia's horseback riding class. It was so fun to see them together doing something my dad loves so much. Later he sent me these pictures of Lydia feeding the horses up on my Grandpa's ranch. "She's always loved horses and animals", he said."
plus more horseback riding lessons until we had to cancel them because of the coronavirus
-Learning to be confident in the kitchen, including reading recipes and using kid kitchen knives. (A neighbor was joining us, clearly pre-pandemic.)
-Austin doing upstart and Lydia working to handstitch a small stuffed "Little Blue Truck" for Caleb's birthday while I read out loud to her.
Once the pandemic hit, I thought that we could just keep pushing through homeschool like normal (just dropping our outside-the-home activities) but I finally realized that we needed to take a step back, too. I was feeling stress, trying to keep up with the news, trying to absorb what was happening and what the ramifications were going to be. A few days after everything shut down, we had an earthquake which served to further unsettle things! So we built a fort, did some pages of some workbooks and just read a lot instead of trying to keep up with our normal schedule. It was just what we needed.
-After the fort, I finally got rid of this old brown couch that's been in our basement for a couple of years, but now that we are finishing the basement has been taking up valuable floor (and mental) space on our main level. Lydia was so sad and she spent the morning doing her reading/schoolwork on the couch in the front yard. Ha.
-We turned on some Daniel Tiger and did puzzles and I loved it. (I love Daniel Tiger.) The songs were on point. "When something seems bad, turn it around and find something good!" "I like to be with my fam-i-ly!" and a song about washing your hands "Germs, Germs, Go away." Ha!
We learned about "soft heart" and a "change of heart" in our Book of Mormon study and we made hearts out of baking soda on Monday, then at the end of the week we used vinegar to "change" them.
(A huge win for all involved.)
Lydia started doing her piano lessons via Zoom.
Austin finished a workbook and so he earned a rootbeer and a movie with mom and dad. (Land Before Time for the win.)
I talk a LOT about homeschooling Lydia, but Austin is doing incredibly well, too. He's smart, can count to 50 (at least), he works hard - especially when working on his talking time, and he LOVES games. That's the thing I want to remember about him the most right now is how much he loves to play card games. His current favorite is Cover Your Assets and I have played it approximately 50 times in the past week. It counts as homeschool because: social cues, mind skills, playing with others, and counting! Austin can now count to 100 by 5's, 10's and 20's. He also knows that four silvers (25) make 100 and two gold (50) make 100. (Sleeping Queens is another fun game he likes and it has taught him almost all of the math facts under 10.)
We set a goal for each of the kids and when they earned it, we went and bought Waffle Love to eat during a movie night. It was the best.
-Lydia reading late into the night with her reading light and a fort her daddy made her.
But of all the highlights, the best part of homeschool is the tiny moments of just being together. I always say this, and always will. Having my kids home gives us the opportunity to be together. Seeing Lydia and Austin reading outside in the sunshine, or watching Lydia hold Lucy next to her at the table while she does her work, they are just priceless moments to me.
Pandemic, or no, I'm just so grateful to be here with my family right now.
