What a week it has been. Oh, it’s only Thursday afternoon.

It’s our first full week of home school because of the school closures from the coronavirus concerns. Like most families, we are still trying to get into a routine.

Emily normally teaches preschool from home 4 mornings each week so she had some tentative ideas of what the kids would do (we didn’t have all the login info, assignments, etc. from teachers yet). On Monday, all of the kids were obedient, stayed on task, and even helped create the “school” schedule for what each day would look like.

Tuesday started getting a little more challenging, especially for Jackson, who was thrown off his routine of going to school and playing with his friends. He definitely had a harder time. The weather was great at the beginning of the week so lots of “recess” time outside.

I normally work from home at least one day each week, so working from home everyday now (at least for the next couple of weeks) isn’t too much of a disruption for me or the rest of the family. I could hear the occasional meltdown, mostly from Jackson.

Wednesday we woke up to a 5.7 magnitude earthquake! Even though the epicenter was about 45 miles north of us, we could definitely feel some good shaking. Jackson was a bit scared, and took some time to recover, but the other kids were not really fussed by it. The morning was a bit thrown off, but we were able to recover and actually get the kids set up with their school assignments. Felt a couple of aftershocks throughout the day.

Today has been the most challenging day. Taylor has had a hard time with her school assignments and has trouble staying on task when she perceives something as “hard”. We try to just do things in 20 minute sections before a switch to something new or a break and that seems to work ok. It seems the novelty of home school has worn off for most of our kids. We knew it would.

I know most schools have had to scramble to get the technology up and running with all the assignments, etc., but we’ve had no issues so far.

In addition to the “official” school work our kids are doing, we also are trying to keep them engaged in learning with some other apps. Jackson and Hailey have enjoyed Starfall ABCs and Preschool and Kindergarten Games. Taylor and Makenzie do Prodigy Math, Tynker, and Scratch.

Screens seem to move the needle most with Taylor (and most kids in general I would imagine), so as she completes assignments, reads, and plays outside, she can earn “fun” screen time, which includes Minecraft, Roblox, and/or Animal Jam.

We’ve been also getting a family walk in each afternoon/evening and playing board games together most days.

Thanks to all who have reached out to us asking if we need anything. Overall we are doing well and trying to do our best to stay busy (sane) during these unusual circumstances.