Homeschool & e-Learning

We spent about 10 weeks doing homeschool due to the COVID-19. This has been a whirlwind adventure. Oak Farm, being a very hands on learning type of school, had to scramble to figure out a plan of how to function as a school and support the learning from home. It has been difficult on everyones' part. The school created a website that held all the resources for every class and grade level. Each set of teachers put Montessori works onto the site for parents to print off or follow or accomplish online. Many materials needed printed in order to function as a learning work. Many teacher lessons were placed as recorded videos online with follow up work to print. Many "zoom" meetings were scheduled for each class at different times and for different subjects; from middle school all the way down to the toddler classroom. I spent my Sunday evenings going through the upcoming weeks' calendar of zoom meetings and the teachers' lessons and options for work, printing materials and worksheets and other resource materials. 

We created Montessori-like shelving by subject and placed works on the shelves as "choices." Later we rearranged the shelves by child, keeping all that childs' work from all subjects in the same vicinity. Owen had his own cupboard of "works" that I would change up daily. The kids would start the week with a work plan, learning what works were available to them and choosing how they would spend their work cycle. Even Owen got into routine with this "work cycle." He knew everyone was doing "work" and he would go to his cupboard corner and pick out works to do independently. Middle school was very independent and we did not see a lot of Jaxton through all this work cycle stuff. He had his regular middle school classes one after the other all over zoom. Thankfully the middle school curriculum did not have to change much through all of this. 

 This all was very challenging because all the kids would have questions for me or need help with a work, it seemed like constantly. I continually encouraged them to do work that they could do with no help. Often, however, it was rather boredom or loneliness that they wanted to work with me or could not focus without encouragement. Their learning did continue, and we did our best. It was fun to watch them learn things and see their brains working hard. I enjoyed those "aha" moments they each had when a concept clicked or a math solution was found. Or when a book or project was finally complete. I also enjoyed doing "3 period lessons" for Owen and watching his cute eyes light up to learn that when the caterpillar came out of his house, there wasn't all of a sudden a new bug, but he had actually turned into a butterfly! These were special moments. 

 Other special moments included the kids teaching the kids. Kaylee would take the opportunity to work with Nathan on his numbers, cursive, or math work. And she would see Owen getting distracted and create a "name tracing work" for him to do at his table while I was busy with another child. Cooper took Owen on a color scavenger hunt while I was busy with Dawson and he was waiting for me to help him with math. It was a well rounded effort and all of us were involved. 

 We struggled with focus some. And we struggled with not wanting to do work at all. We struggled with choosing a morning work cycle and then switching to an afternoon work cycle. We struggled when the work cycle just didn't work at all. We struggled with fighting, arguing, kids bothering kids. We struggled when I could not find myself a good "teacher" and needed space. We struggled with emotions, frustrations, messy kitchens, lunch and multiple snack times, rainy days being stuck inside, and a constant messy house. 

 We did Cosmic Kids yoga for PE. Yoga as Trolls, Star Wars, Wizard of Oz, and others. We did work with friends virtually over personal zoom meetings. We learned from Mo Willems, the author of Elephant Piggie books, how to doodle, write stories, and make games. We learned about the weather from the Fort Wayne Channel 21 Weatherman who gave us lessons over you tube. We learned many recipes as we did virtual cooking classes with Kids Taste Buds Kitchen. We learned how to draw cartoons using you tube Art Hub and we did art projects over zoom with Grandma in Utah. 

 Boy am I glad this is all over with. School has ended and summer is here. A mix of positive and negative emotions revolving around COVID-19 homeschooling.