A Day in the Life: Distance Learning

Back in the spring I wrote a post about being in isolation due to Covid-19, read it here. We are still in distance learning, but it is way more structured and our days are a bit closer to a typical school day. There's no way to create a school environment at home, but we've done our best. I want to record a typical day of distance learning for us because I know down the line I likely will barely remember what this was like. At least I can only hope this will be a vague and distant memory at some point!

6:10am- My alarm goes off and I get ready to head out for my run. I put my clothes out the night before but check the weather and it is way colder than was predicted so I have to change out my clothes. Due to the wind chill I decide to put on a wind beaker over my top. When I get outside I realize it is sleeting which was not shown on either of my weather apps and I'm super glad I have the wind breaker which is also water proof. As I take off, I slip on the driveway and hope the roads are better. I hit a really icy patch about a quarter-mile from home and almost turn around but decide the roads are probably better than the sidewalks so when I get to where the sidewalk ends I may be better off. When I get to where the sidewalk ends the road is super icy so I run way off over in the grass of the ditch. Around in here a motorcycle spins out on ice and I wave down an oncoming car so I can warn them and they won't hit him. It turns out to be a police officer, much to his luck, and they don't need my help so I continue on. Definitely should have turned around at that point but I'm stubborn and I was already out there so I kept going. I mostly had to run in grass when there was some or run super slow to keep from falling.

7:30am- Arrive home with a nice layer of ice on my jacket and my headphones turned into icicles. Ty takes a picture for me and then heads to work. I make breakfast for Carter and then get in the shower. Elise is still asleep. That is one advantage of distance learning, I don't have to wake the kids up. If they don't wake up in time, they can even just watch their recorded Zoom Meeting later, but that's never happened.

8:15am- Elise wakes up as I'm finishing up foam rolling. I switch over laundry and start another load while the kids get dressed. Then I brush Elise's hair as they brush their teeth and I touch up their teeth when they are done. Then I make breakfast for Elise and myself.

8:45am- Normally we start calendar at 8:30 but we're running behind today since Elise slept in so we quickly make it through calendar in time for their 9:00 Zoom Meetings. Carter and Elise are desperate to play out in the ice so I send them out for 3 minutes and log into their computers for them and pull up their Zoom Meetings which they normally do so they can play out there.

Carter choosing the color for the day.

Elise adding the day to the calendar.

My crazy babies playing out in the ice!

9:00am- Elise has her language arts Zoom and Carter has math. They like to be in the same room and end up sitting at the table together which I think makes it harder to hear but doesn't seem to bother either of them. It does make it easier for me because I can keep an eye on both of them and help them both while staying in one place.

First Zoom Meeting of the day.

9:45am- Zoom meetings are over and they have a 15 minute break before Carter's next meeting. Elise doesn't have a meeting at 10:00 but I work on the alphabet, letter sounds, sight words, and vocabulary with her during that time. We call it reading corner. They head back outside to play some more while I get a quick strength workout in.

10:00am- Carter gets on his social studies Zoom. Elise meets me in the reading corner. We sing some alphabet songs (in Spanish), practice letters and letter sounds (las letras y sonidos), read books in Spanish and English, review her vocabulary words, and practice her sight words.

Reviewing vocabulary words during reading corner. Carter on his social studies Zoom in the background.

Elise in reading corner with Carter in the background.

10:45am- Carter's meeting is over and Elise and I are finished. Elise works on her language arts assignment, coloring and cutting out a puzzle with the letter H. I help Carter with his math assignment and help him submit his math and social studies assignments. The last 2 weeks were review so he's not used to having work to submit and forgot how to do it.

Elise working on her rompecabeza.

11:00am- Carter has his language arts Zoom and Elise has her math Zoom. This is the toughest part of the day because Elise is always super done with Zoom Meetings and her math lessons are pretty boring. I usually let Carter go off on his own because Elise really needs the extra help to focus. Carter takes his computer to the futon for his meeting. I fold laundry while I help Elise with her math.

Carter watching his language arts Zoom with Tesla.

Elise working on her math Zoom.

11:45am- Both the kids' Zoom Meetings end and Ty gets home for lunch. Carter remembers to check for his assignment for language arts and is already doing it when I go over to check on him, yay! The kids head outside to play some more, they are seriously crazy! At this point it is 25 degrees with an even colder feels like, thanks to the wind chill! I make my lunch and the kids come inside to eat so Ty makes Elise a sandwich while I get food for Carter.

12:15pm- Ty heads back to work. I finish eating and then the kids unload the dishwasher while I wash the dishes in the sink and then reload the dishwasher. On last week's grocery order I saw Play Doh was on sale so I got a big box to give the kids for Valentine's Day. Then when they were helping me unload the groceries, it had spilled out of the bag and was sitting right where they could see it. So I went ahead and gave it to them early. They have been playing with it non-stop since. When they're done with their chores they start playing snakes with Play Doh and then ask me to play with them. They have this whole elaborate game with eggs and snakes hatching out of them and special nests for them to hatch in. You have coins you can use to level up your snake and then you can battle other snakes to earn more coins. It's a really cool game but it was a little boring for me because I had to just sit and wait for my eggs to hatch and couldn't really do much since I didn't have any snakes ready yet.

Playing snakes with Play Doh.

1:20pm- I head in to put away the laundry I folded earlier and have Carter pull up his art teacher's page to see what materials he needs for art class today. There's a slideshow with art work for them to look at before the lesson so he checks that out. When I'm done, I come in and help him find a ruler for his lesson. Elise decides she's still hungry and makes some oatmeal.

1:30pm- Carter's art class Zoom begins. The kids have humanities classes in the afternoon every day except Wednesday. Each day is a different class and for Carter today is art. Elise loves the art teacher and art is her absolute favorite so she ends up watching in on part of the Zoom with Carter while I wait on her to finish her oatmeal so we can do the letter activities I have for her today. Since her letter of the week is Hh, I went through magazines, coloring books, and our stickers to find her vocabulary words for the week. We will make a book throughout the week, doing a few words each day. She also practices with a couple pages her teacher sent home in the learning packet for the week.

Elise eating her oatmeal while she watches Carter's Zoom Meeting.

Elise working on her Letra Hh Libro while Carter is on his Zoom.

2:00pm- Elise has her humanities class. Today is library. While she's on her meeting, Carter's art class ends and he comes over to listen to the read aloud with her. Library is one of Carter's favorite classes. It's so sweet. The teacher makes the mistake of asking 35 kindergartners if they have a special stuffed animal before starting the read aloud. It was pandemonium with kids all unmuting to yell about their special buddy. Elise heard the question and took off running to find her Puppy so she could show the teacher. I told her I'd go find Puppy for her to show her teacher at the end of the meeting, but she needed to stay and listen to her Zoom. When I brought Puppy in, she cuddled her for the rest of the meeting. It was so cute.

Elise immediately raised her hand to tell her teacher about Puppy and then took off running to get her.

2:30pm- Elise is done with her Zoom Meeting. The kids want to play out in the ice some more, the crazies, so I let them head out to play while I clear up Elise and my materials and work on this post a little bit.

2:40pm- They didn't last very long outside this time! Carter makes snacks for himself and Elise while I sort their laundry for them to fold later. Then Carter finishes up his art assignment while Elise and I finish up the language arts practice.

3:15pm- We move on to Raz-Kids (online reading, it's great because it also has Spanish). Then Zearn for Elise and Edmentum for Carter to do their math practice for the day. They are supposed to spend 30 minutes on Raz-Kids and 30 minutes on their math program per day but that's just so much. Elise would read like 10 books in 30 minutes and she'd run out of books at her level. Plus, I'd rather them be reading real books and not spending so much time on a computer. So I just have them each listen to and read one book each day. Carter also has comprehension questions to go along with his book. Then they each do one lesson for math. 

4:00pm- We move on to activity time. This is something extra I added toward the end of the day to give us extra practice with Spanish vocabulary. Right now we are using it to practice a color of the day. During calendar time one of the kids gets to pick the color of the day. Then during activity time we read a poem about that color and each color a page that goes with the poem. Then we play "Yo espio" or "I spy", finding objects that are that color.

Coloring our poem page for the color of the day.

4:15pm- Read aloud time. Carter, Elise, and I each pick a book to read together. Elise had been choosing to read a chapter of her Dragon Master's book each day but today chooses to read a chapter out of Bug Boys, a graphic novel I got for Carter at the library. They still argue over who's going to sit in my lap for read alouds and, man, will I miss it when they don't want to sit in my lap for reading time anymore!

4:40pm- We are finished with school and now it's chore time! I've already sorted the kids' laundry into separate laundry baskets. They just fold it and put it away. I don't make them fold their jammies, they just put them in there long ways. The rest they do their best to fold nicely and that's enough for me!

4:55pm- When they finish their chores, they asked to have their 15 minutes of tablet time. While they did that, I worked on updating this post.

5:00pm- Ty got home. We discussed dinner. I had intended to make chili in the crock pot, perfect for a cold and icy day, but got busy with school stuff and forgot to get it going in time. This summer my friend who has a garden got too busy with work to keep up with picking her garden and she had plenty of stuff canned and stockpiled so she invited me to go over and pick and keep whatever I got. So I ended up making a punch of batches of tomato soup and freezing them. I was really feeling soup since it was cold so Ty did his magic, breaking apart the soup and heating it up on the stove for us. He also made grilled cheese for the kids and cheesy corn tortillas for us.

6:00pm- Elise had an online Girl Scout event for our area, not our troop. We invited Kyra and Charlee to come over to try it out with us. We made Valentine's Day puppy chow and a craft. Afterward the kids played for a while before they headed home.

The girls listening to the Girl Scout Zoom Meeting.

7:30pm- Kyra, Charlee, and Niki headed out. I went in to ask the kids to get jammies on but they were sitting on Carter's bed reading together and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I let them stay up a little later since they were being so sweet reading together. Then it was jammy, toothbrush, and floss time. Since I let them stay up later and they'd already read in Carter's room, we skipped bedtime books. 

The kids reading together in Carter's room.

8:15pm- The kids were in bed and Ty and I cleaned up the kitchen together. Then we watched some tv while I finish up this post and were in bed around 10.