By Nicki St George
April 13, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
Nicki St. George is part of a team of parents who are reporting each week on how they are coping with the COVID19 virus and having the children at home.
Monday, April 6
Every morning, for the sake of my sanity, I write up a schedule on the whiteboard easel that resides in our living space. It looks something like this:
9-9:30 – get dressed, brush teeth, make bed and pull curtains
9:30-10:30 – schoolwork
10:30-11:15 – outdoor time (If you call it recess then the kids will automatically go outside and don’t question it.)
11:15-12:15 – creative time (this might be just watching a drawing tutorial on YouTube and following along, lego, play doh, etc.) or baking or something science-y.
12:30-1 – lunch (we listen to the Kidsnuz podcast while we eat)
1-2 – Reading and Dreambox math
3-4 – a walk or bike ride (weather dependent)
4 – 6 – ipad time/social time and a snack
This may seem intense; however, it keeps the requests for devices down to a minimum and I really only have to plan one thing for the day (during the creative time). My afternoons often get pretty loose and I have resorted to ‘educational TV’ as another option on occasion. I highly recommend Brain Child on Netflix! Next week I will tweak the schedule and think of something new for us to do.
Bea – all set for the next creation.
Tuesday, April 7
I find the work on google classroom from each of my kids’ teachers easy enough to follow. I am happy to have this work as it takes a lot of pressure having to come up with my own educational activities. Today, however, Bea is completely uninterested in doing the assigned work. Instead she has decided to create her own version of Mo Willem’s “Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” and since she is completely engrossed in this project, I decide to let the school stuff go. In the afternoon, I take some bean seeds that were left on the vine and we put them into glass jars with wet paper towel so that we can watch as they germinate. We also plant some cat grass seed in an old plastic container for Clifford (our cat).
Wednesday, April 8
Today I am feeling the need to get out of the house. After providing tech support for another mum friend who is trying to navigate google classroom, we go for a drive to one of Bea’s friends’ houses. I exchange some bean seeds for a printed-out workbook for Bea. We stand far apart on the lawn and Bea says hi to her friend and her sisters. Leo asks if we can visit his friends. So, we drive around some more and find two sets of friends playing out on their front lawns. We try maintaining the required social distance from our friends, but this is sometimes challenging as the younger siblings ignore the 2-meter rule. We keep these visits short, but it is nice to see some friendly faces. Is this against the rules? On the way home, I pull into the empty parking lot at Mapleview Mall. Bea sits on my lap and steers the car around the lampposts. Leo protests in the back seat – he is a rule follower, unlike his mother.
Thursday, April 9
We do our weekly drive up to my parents’ farm in Campbellville. I am grateful for the large 45-acre section, with trails maintained by my dad, which allows for us to have long, isolated nature walks. Bea wants to hold Nana’s hand, but we keep our distance. This week my mum has given the kids a checklist of things to find. Everything is changing week by week. This week we spot a patch of yellow daffodils. I pick some to take home and this is enough to brighten up my day.
Leo – did he get soaked?
Friday, April 10
A teacher friend of mine posts something on Facebook that makes me realize that I am not in fact homeschooling my kids. I am not creating the content or lessons myself; I am simply administering the work and making sure that they are completing their assignments. I learn a lot about my kids and their learning styles this week. I see how easily distracted my son becomes whenever I start working with Bea. I now understand why so much of his work comes home incomplete. I also notice that Leo has excellent manners and he thanks his teacher for each assignment. Bea learns her 3D shapes this week and, in the evening, she pretends to be the teacher and teaches us all about the shapes.
Saturday, April 11
Lows for the week: Very little exercise done; my husband working so hard to meet a deadline and only emerges to read Bea a bedtime story most days; my first trip to the grocery store since the full impact of social distancing has taken effect.
Highs for the week: Leo requesting new favourite songs from the COVID-19 Spotify playlist, such as Toxic and Don’t Stand So Close to Me (a welcome departure from his usual Weird Al songs); making decoupage Easter eggs for our window with the kids, using our new firepit to make s’mores (before the new bylaw against open fires comes into effect).
Sunday, April 12
8pm (the night before): Bea writes a note to the Easter Bunny asking them to use hand sanitizer before entering our house.
4am: Bea comes into the bed and asks if she can begin the Easter egg hunt.
5am: I order Bea to go into her room and shut the door and not to emerge until it reads 6am on her fitbit watch.
5:10am: Bea calls from her bedroom, “there’s a mouse in my room.” This is not unusual for our house. I call back, “is it alive or dead?” It is alive…barely. Probably Clifford’s handiwork. A typical male, he never finishes the job he starts.
5:15am: Bea enters my room with the mouse in a box and tells us that it is her new pet. Dan quickly ushers her outside and gets rid of her new pet.
9am: Dan and I wake up having missed the excitement of the Easter egg hunt (for the second year in a row). Bea has eaten her body weight in chocolate and will later get herself a bowl from the kitchen to carry around with her from room to room in case she needs to throw up.
9:05am: I make us coffees (with Baileys) and scrounge around the house for the unfound eggs.
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This was my favourite one! Haha “typical male..”
I love reading your adventures of Covid -19…I love that you have planned learning times and scheduled events throughout your day with them…I found when my kids were little, that planned and organized times for things were much easier as the children can see what their day is planned out to be and they are unsettled about what is expected of them as well…mixing fun things to prevent boredom… sounds like you got this Girl…keep up the great work
*not unsettled
SOUNDS LIKE “FUN” i REMEMBER YEARS AGO AWAKING AT 3:00 A.M. TO REALIZE THAT THE EASTER BUNNY FORGOT!! hE CAME VERY QUICKLY AND DID HIS JOB. BE PATIENT, KIND AND HAVE FUN!!