I haven't used this blog since 2013, when my now 7th grader was going into first grade. I think that's when I simply got busy with volunteering at the school, managing the kid's various activities, and then a few years later, working as a substitute teacher. Now that we are in a state mandated "shelter-in-place" and preparing for distance/online learning for the kids (7th grade and 4th grade) for the foreseeable future, I thought that blogging the experience was a good idea.
Prior to our mandated staycation, we were commuting to school and back (25 minutes, one way) hockey practice 3 times a week (25-35 minutes one way), had hockey games on the weekends (25 - 90 minutes away for regular games, plane rides away for tournaments), and were practicing for science olympiad several times a week. The last two weeks contained daily practice after school for Science Olympiad. To make a long story short, we started what I've dubbed "CoronaStaycay" pretty burnt out, so I have embraced the situation to give us a chance to relax, reset, and hopefully get some stuff done around the house! I plan to write about the things we did and what worked and what didn't (and maybe why if I have time). For this post, here is some background on our timeline.
Monday March 9 - The husband had a work event that was poorly attended and he came home early and started his 100% work from home stint.
Thursday March 12 - We heard that L's Science Olympiad competition (schedule for Saturday March 14) was cancelled and would not be rescheduled. After school that day, instead of the practice we were expecting to have, I picked up all of our science olympiad supplies that I was storing at school and my fellow mentor mom and I cleaned out our shelves. (I did this just to grab things before spring break, but it's a good thing I did, because my stuff would've been held hostage at school for who knows how long if I hadn't!)
Friday March 13 - Sent the kids to school, our house cleaners came and cleaned the house, the husband and I braved Costco because we were legitimately out of orange juice and low on yogurt. We also got milk, eggs, cheese, and bread, among other things because we were there, so it made sense to stock up (nothing crazy though - we didn't over-stock our house!). We tried to practice social distancing, but people were a little too close for our liking. After school, we decided to let RJ go to the ice rink with a friend, because we received notice that schools (ours included) were closing until April 6, and that it might be awhile until he got to go again since we were staying home during the virus crisis.
Saturday March 14 - Sunday March 15 - In our first official days of sheltering in place, we gathered ideas about what the kids wanted to do (in the house) over their Spring Break week and I tried to get a rough schedule so that it didn't turn into the YouTube and video game fest that our rare days off tend to devolve into. I wanted them to have fun, but I also wanted to make sure that their fun was a little more structured because we'd be doing this staying at home thing for a while and I wanted them to take advantage of the extra time to actually do something productive rather than just filling time.
Monday March 16 - Friday March 20 - School Spring Break (regularly scheduled)
Thursday March 19 - We learned that the kids would be logging into live, online classes for two hours with a break between during their time away from school. I wish we were given guidance on how much classwork/homework outside of those two hours would be, so that I could plan ahead, but I suppose we will find out soon enough. My hope is that they don't have more than two hours of work outside of those live times, so that they have daily time for other pursuits that they normally don't get to, because of school. In other words, I'm hoping that the official schoolwork will be minimal, so I can take a stab at a bit of homeschooling/experiential learning.
Monday March 23 - Friday March 27 - Distance Learning Week 1
Monday March 30 - Friday April 3 - Distance Learning Week 2
Beyond April 3 - We don't know yet. Officially, school is closed until April 6. However, due to the standing shelter-in-place order in the state of California that has no official end date as of yet, we really don't know anything beyond April 5. Our governor, Gavin Newsom, has stated that we should be prepared for schools not re-opening until the fall due to the outbreak, so we will adjust as we need to.
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