Now that we've gotten that out of the way. Here's a glimpse into our first taste of forced homeschool, aka "distance learning".
My kids left for their Spring Break in March and never returned to their school. Honestly, the first few weeks were a blur. And then we started getting emails about distance learning. Here were my concerns with this online school thing...
1. I have 5 kids, 3 of them in school. I have an iPad and broken Amazon Fires for them to use. How am I going to get 3 kids on a computer every day for learning? The district did provide us with one computer, which Big Man ended up using.
2. I work from home. Sugar Daddy was currently working from home at the time. So now we've got 2 working parents and 3 online school kids and 2 toddlers.
3. (and I expressed this a number of times) What are the requirements/expectations? What if I have one child whose teachers is SUPER excited about online learning and zooms all day er'day? And then the other whose teacher is MIA? Are we going to be penalized?
So what do you know? We did have a teacher that was super excited. Good for her, but girl... again, I got 5 kids and a job.... ain't nobody got time for pajama story time Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 2PM, 4PM, and 8PM. No, thank you. Give me a packet of worksheets and call it a day.
Let me be clear... I don't blame the teachers. We were all in uncharted waters and learning as we went along. All I ask(ed) is for some understanding. The district should have and should now set some clear expectations and not leave it up to the teacher/school.
Big Man did pretty good. He's pretty self-sufficient. I gave him the computer and let him do his thing for as long as he wanted.
Mr. T was excited to get on and see his teacher and read books on Epic and do the fun internet games, but that was about it.
Poor AM kind of was put on the back burner. Her lessons were A LOT of steps for one lesson. 1) sign into the school website. 2) pick the subject 3) find the day/lesson 4) watch this video 5) print this sheet 6) fill out the sheet 7) upload pic of worksheet to class message board 8) post a video of you reading the worksheet 9) comment on a classmate's post 10) sacrifice a squirrel in your backyard ... okay, I added that last one, but COM'ON! That's 9 steps for ONE LESSON... so now let's times that by 5 days, 5 subjects, and 3 kids.... again, no.
So, did this "forced homeschool" go like I wanted? Hell no! Will this upcoming homeschool go as I wanted? Probably not. But you know what? Now that the kids' district has come out confirming that at least the first 3-weeks will be "distance learning" again, I'm glad we choose to homeschool. If I'm going to be teaching my kids at home anyway, I'd like to do it MY way, on MY terms, with MY expectations.
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