Tag: Life as I know it

Here we are, week 4 of our coronavirus shutdown/quarantine. It’s been almost 2 full weeks since I was in a store, so hopefully I’m not carrying it and as-yet unknowingly contaminating us all. Ryan has gone out more often than I have, so fingers crossed that he’s still well also. The kids have shown zero symptoms whatsoever, so I’m holding out hope that we’re all staying safe. I do wipe down all the doorknobs whenever one of us gets back from a public place and the car after Ryan goes anywhere.

Next week begins our virtual learning for the big 3 through school, so this week will be lighter on the lessons. They’ve already started getting some practice lessons on their respective classroom platforms a couple times a week, so that’s good enough for me. I’m going to have them playing outside a lot this week in preparation for a couple solid hours a day of school work starting Monday. Our good friend Mr. Hand gave them a bag of foam balls last week, so they’ve all been having a blast playing with those outside for P.E. classes.

For review, here are the links to our past 3 weeks:

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3

All right, week 4, here we go…

April 6, 2020

• A little Seesaw class exercise for M, Google Classroom assignments for D, and Epic reading for L while I took the twins on a run
• Playing outside and painting happiness rocks that we’ll spread on a walk later this week sometime
• Ryan had to stop into work and run to the grocery store, so I got some cleaning done and the kids made lunch. He got the last pack of toilet paper! We haven’t been able to get it anywhere lately again.
• I mailed in my absentee ballot for our spring election tomorrow #saferathome
• 3-way Temple Run challenge on their tablets for the big 3 while the babies napped and I showered, but Avit decided he didn’t want to nap today after falling asleep in the stroller earlier. Booger
• Our stockpile should be complete for now so we don’t have to go to the grocery store for at least 2 weeks

April 7, 2020

• Today was the spring presidential primary here in Wisconsin, and the stupid Supreme Court overturned our governor’s last-minute attempt yesterday to postpone the in-person election. Idiots. If thousands of people get sick because they had to go to a polling place, including Ryan, I will want to move.
• D got 2 practice assignments on Google classroom to work on first thing this morning, but nothing came in for L and M. That seemed odd to me, since today and Thursday were supposed to be our designated virtual learning practice days. So they did math with fridge magnets, Dreambox, and Jack Hartmann.
• The weather became amazing today, hitting 77 by the end of the afternoon, so that was it for lessons and everyone headed outside to play.
• Lunch break, Mystery Doug Live at noon, then naps for the boys while I finished up my cleaning and laundry for the day
• L requested a walk after the boys woke up, so we took a nice long one to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon. We went over to Mr. Hand and Miss Clara’s to give them some of the happiness rocks the kids made yesterday, then L and M hid one each at school.
• More backyard play when we got home – the girls treated me and M to a delicious sushi meal while L put on a show for us
• A thunderstorm rolled in, so we quickly cleaned everything up and got inside just before it started pouring and hailing! A beautiful full rainbow came out afterward.
• Ryan got the boys a tub of little firefighters, trucks, signs, etc., because Avit absolutely loves a set of tiny construction signs they got for Christmas. I gave it to them this afternoon, and a massive game of signs/firefighters/cars/dinosaurs ensued.
• Another natural phenomenon tonight – a super pink moon. Fortunately the clouds moved out in time for us to see it rise, and it is gorgeously spectacular. It really was pink! The energy shift it is supposed to signal is definitely needed.

April 8, 2020

• Morning lessons online to start the day for all. I discovered that L and M actually did have lessons in Seesaw yesterday, but I missed them because I was waiting for emails from their teachers. Oops! So they got all caught up while D did hers for the day and I took the twins on a run.
• D did a couple exercises from her 30-day P.E. calendar
• L and M made pink moon drawings to show their art teachers
• Dinosaurs ruled again
• I drew a number line outside for L to do a jumping addition lesson
• A little outdoor play while the weather stayed nice
• School is now done for us after morning lessons are complete, since that’s how it will work once official virtual learning begins next week
• Today is our 14th anniversary, so Ryan went to the store and got a whole trimmed beef tenderloin, sparkling rosé, fixings for risotto, and a beautiful bouquet for me. We had an amazingly delicious dinner!
• An incredible sunset broke through the clouds tonight, too, just for us

April 9, 2020

• Morning lessons for all 3. They love when the teachers upload little videos so they can see them. It’ll be great when they can see their classmates, too, during their weekly Monday meetings.
• The weather today is bizarre – low 40s, windy, sun and fast clouds, and sleet/snow squalls! So it’s been a lot of indoor play (and noise! especially when Ryan’s on a call). The girls tried to go out for a bit, but that lasted mere minutes.
• More dinos!
• Art drawers revamp while the twins napped. I’ve long hated the clutter of this corner of the dining room, but the kids use it constantly so I can’t just wipe it out all together. It holds all of their art supplies under and around the piano. So I finally found a more modern, adult-looking solution for the drawers at least to replace the green, yellow, red, and blue ones you can see in the background of all the school working pictures. The fabric-covered drawers are obviously less hardy than the hard plastic ones, but I was sick of having something I took from our neighbors when they moved as such an obvious piece of furniture. They do hold a ton, though, so I moved it into the kids’ bedroom to be M’s dresser. That works perfectly.

April 10, 2020

• Today we were technically “off” school for Good Friday, so no new assignments came in. The big 3 still started the morning by logging into their classroom platforms just to make sure, though, then they each did a little reading and/or math.
• The rest of the day was just play time. Ryan hard boiled eggs to dye tomorrow, I rode the bike downstairs for a little while this morning and finally got to start my newest book on Kindle that I’ve really been looking forward to reading, and the kids caused random destruction and mayhem. You know, the ususal.

Next week begins our official Virtual Learning Time (VLT), sanctioned lessons and activities online through the school and district, so I’m not sure how much I’ll update like this anymore. I’ll probably still try to keep track of this time in quarantine/shutdown somehow, but I might not have enough to list out each day as I’ve been doing so far. Every weekday morning will start with attendance at 8:00, then 2-3 hours of schoolwork for the girls, less for Morrison, and a virtual face-to-face class meeting for a half hour each Monday for all 3. The afternoons I’ll just let them play and relax, knowing they’ll have a good chunk of learning in the mornings. I’m not their teacher, this isn’t school as they know it, and I’m not going to try to force anything. I know their teachers all have good work lined up and they’ll still get to do plenty of learning, so I’m trusting in them and leaving the big stuff in their hands now.

This certainly has been an interesting experience, I will say that. We got to virtually see some great places that we wouldn’t have otherwise, I did have some fun activities and lessons for them, and this morning Della said she does miss her friends from being in class every day but she’s enjoying having school at home. I think we’ll all end up just fine. But stay tuned – I may have some more updates for you after all!

“Spring break” is over, so we’re back to our little lessons routine this week. Here are my posts from the past 2 weeks if you’d like to catch up:

• Week 1
• Week 2

Let’s see what this week has in store, shall we? Next week we’re supposed to start getting some trial runs for our virtual learning, which is slated to begin on April 13. That’s the day the kids were originally scheduled to go back to school, but the governor has since shut everything down until at least April 24. So who knows if they’ll get to go back at all this school year. I sure hope so! They all miss their teachers terribly. At least we’ll get to start “seeing” them a little bit pretty soon.

March 30, 2020

• Cosmic Kids yoga
• Dreambox/reading/Alphablocks while I took the babies on a run
• Home Ec – baking cookies
• Hogwarts digital escape room for D (they all started off going through it, but L and M quickly dropped out); frosting cookies for L; write around the room for M – “at” rhyming words
• Lunch for the twins
• Hangouts story time with Grandma! Plus a cameo by Grandpa and plenty of goofing around for good measure
• Lunch for the big 3, naps for the boys
• Writing then tablet time for the girls
• Mo Willems

March 31, 2020

• Math and writing – giant cards addition for M, math packet from school for L, book report and virtual pen pals with friends from school for D
• Science – mini volcanos
• P.E. – jumping like animals and running the back steps
• Lunch break
• Mo Willems birthday crown making
• Naps for the boys, reading for the girls
• Creating for our WFB Rec Dept window art contest – outer space!

April 1, 2020

• Dreambox/Jack Hartmann/reading books on Epic/pen pals slides for almost 2 hours to start the day – I took the twins on a run and got some chores done
• Lots of emails from teachers to prepare for virtual learning, which starts on April 13
• Got M set up on his class app, even though we found out later that they sent out those instructions a week early – oops!
• L and M played tennis in the back back yard
• Lunch then naps for the twins
• P.E. for the big 3 – go outside and play for as long as the sun is out. M created a “territory.” I started transplanting my dining room table garden into new pots and propagating a fuzzy panda succulent that had gotten huge!
• D got a reading and writing assignment from her teacher
• L got a sight words assignment from her teacher – pick 2-3 little activities from a list to do with a couple sight words. She chose to write 2 sight words in cursive for a handwriting lesson and draw a picture of 3 other sight words.
• More Dreambox math and Epic reading after dinner – these kids love those programs!
• I had my first virtual happy hour with girls from the block – so fun!

April 2, 2020

• We’ve started getting emails from teachers with practice lessons and tentative schedules, so I’m trying to make a point to get us started with “school” right at 8:00 like they’ll have to beginning on the 13th. This morning all 3 did reading on Epic or other assigned short stories for almost an hour.
• It was the nicest weather day yet, so at 9:00 I took all 5 for a nice long walk. The boys were all chasing each other and crashing through the house, Ryan was trying to work, and I was about to lose my mind, so out the door we went. It was great! We found as much window/door art as we could, played sidewalk chalk games, walked over to our good friends’ house (they gave us foam balls for the kids and wine for me – they are THE BEST!!!), walked by and said hello to school, then walked home our normal school route for some familiarity.
• Outdoor play time for some more exercise and fresh air (i.e., wear them out!)
• Lunch break then naps for the boys
• More reading and assignments for the girls
• More outside play after naps
• D’s first FaceTime with one of her good friends
• M and I tried to play a chicken game – Lay It or Break It
• More Epic reading all evening after dinner!

April 3, 2020

• Epic reading/Dreambox while I took the twins for a run
• Ryan went to the grocery store for what was hopefully a 2-week stockpile. I plugged the chest freezer in in the basement the other day to prepare.
• Guest reader was Auntie Mer! She surprised us with an amazing costume!! The twins pretty much destroyed story time with their noise.
• Lunch break then naps for the twins
• Back yard scavenger hunt for M, indoor and outdoor math scavenger hunt for L, decade of my life paragraph assignment for D (this is a report they started right before school got shut down – a paragraph and picture for each year of their life so far)
• P.E. outside – playing throw the ball over the garage, catch, and running around
• Music class – listening to a symphony from a link the music teacher sent today
• More Epic reading after dinner
• A drawing tutorial on TV that Lana loved
• Another Ramen Fury night; they were bonkers

A couple observations from today… This was the day I was officially ready to divorce my entire family. Apparently 3 weeks of quarantine is what it takes. Ryan started the morning crabbier than usual (I swear if I hear “I’m on the phone!” or “I’m doing work!” one more time, I’m gonna run away. I know you’re working, that’s why you’re here, duh!). The twins’ amount and volume of screaming were greater than usual. Morrison’s question count by 8:30 a.m. was higher than usual. Is there a full moon tonight or something??

But I went for my run, got a ton of groceries put away and organized, showered, finished my new and improved dining room table garden, and tried to focus on all that was right with today instead – we are able to be home together, we’re all still healthy, the twins took a 2-hour nap, the sun came out, the big kids played outside, Ryan went for a long walk to get out of the house this afternoon, and my sanity began to return. I guess I’ll keep them all. Cherish the days, right?

Check back next week for our last week before official virtual learning time from school begins. I may or may not start putting wine in my coffee mug instead of coffee. 😉

My post from our first week of shutdown last week got longer than I was anticipating, so I’ll break this little adventure of ours down week by week instead of keeping 1 giant running post.

Our schools are now closed “indefinitely,” so maybe we won’t be going back in a month after all. I’ve heard that we will not lose summer vacation because of that, though, so that’s good. Our district is planning to have virtual learning in place for students by the second week of April, so we should be running with an online curriculum after the originally planned 4 weeks of closure. I’ll actually kind of miss our little school routine here once that starts, but I know it’ll be good to get some structured lessons back in. I just feel so heartbroken for the kids that they probably won’t get to see their teachers again to finish out this school year with them and do all of the fun things that were upcoming – field trips I was actually going to get to chaperone (Lana’s to a nature preserve and Della’s big all-day one to Madison, boo!!), another time as Morrison’s classroom helper, Morrison’s star student day, Della’s orchestra concert, Spring Sing and campout day for the whole school, taking flowers from our garden in for the teachers during the last days of the school year, and all the daily hugs and high-fives they look forward to from all of their teachers. They all love them so much, and so do I! And K4 for Morrison is seriously the greatest year ever with its half days – poop! We are sending them weekly emails with updates and pictures, though, so at least they can keep in touch.

So. Here’s the link to week 1 if you want to catch up:

The great shutdown of 2020 – week 1

Now, let’s see what week 2 holds. Our governor just issued a safer at home order for Wisconsin until April 24, so there’s that. We were technically supposed to be on spring break this week, too, but I figure the kids are getting enough of a break from school as it is with all this. So we’ll keep doing some lighter lessons and probably more movie watching this week…

March 23, 2020

• Alphablocks for L and M, Raz Kids and online typing club for D, Little Baby Bum for the twins for about 45 minutes while I did my workout
• Science – Ivory soap cloud experiment (total failure!! we’ll have to try that one again); solar system wind chimes
• Jack Hartmann songs for M
• Spanish and dancing with Elmo
• Indoor cardio exercises
• Lunch break
• Story time from space
• Naps for the boys, shower for me, writing time for the girls and a movie
• Movie and play time the rest of the day! The big 3 and I played a couple games after the twins went to bed, too.

March 24, 2020

• Outdoor scavenger hunt while I did some cleaning. The twins tried to play, too, but it’s still way too muddy for them.
• Easter card-making project – thank you, Aunt Jeanne!
• Lunch break
• Science – making your own kaleidoscope
• Naps for the boys, tablet time for the girls, having groceries delivered and picking up mulch for me before we have to stay home
• Pre-dinner outside play with sidewalk chalk – hopscotch and Twister
• After-dinner game time – Ramen Fury

March 25, 2020

Today was much more “spring break”-ish, mainly because it was so nice outside so I wanted to get everyone out as much as possible. Plus they’ve really been doing great with their school at home, so they deserve some down time. And this was the first day of “safer at home,” so let’s see if we really can flatten the curve of this monster and try to get life back on track and heal this world.

• A fun visit through the window with friends who were out for a walk
• Dreambox for D and M to start the morning; L attempted to build a blanket fort with my mop
• Fort making for the big 3 while I took the babies on a run
• 2 hours of outside play time while I spread mulch – definitely the earliest in the season I’ve ever gotten it in the gardens! The girls got their fairy garden set up after its winter buried in leaves and snow. I think we’re only missing a couple little turtles. The twins did way better than yesterday – only minimal escape attempts and a few falls in the mud. (no pictures of this today, unfortunately, since I had my wet, muddy gardening gloves on the whole time)
• Lunch break
• Naps for the boys (except A, who I knew wasn’t going to sleep right since he fell asleep in the stroller during my run), shower for me, reading and tablet time for the girls
• Our first social distancing happy hour with the neighbors! So fun to see faces and catch up, especially since the forecast for the next couple days looks like it’ll keep us inside.

March 26, 2020

• Morning math class – identifying and sorting the clean dishes out of the dishwasher by shape, counting the number of each type of silverware. Also saves me a chore! 藍
• Social interaction and more math – playing the game of Life
• P.E. class – Twister. There’s one picture I included simply because Avit is the only thing not blurry in it, when it’s usually the opposite!
• Lunch then naps for just the twins today
• More Life for L and M, reading her page on this blog for D, chores and work time for me
• Attempted game of Ramen Fury, but the twins interrupted and destroyed
• Engineering – Legos for all 5
• Another game night – Snakes & Ladders, Ramen Fury
• Indoor camping for the big 3, complete with “clouds,” campfire setups, and story telling as soon as I left the room 殺

March 27, 2020

• Legos all day today! Ryan briefly went to work and the grocery store mid-morning, and I got my workout and a couple chores done
• Indoor picnic for lunch to close out “spring break” week
• Naps for the boys, shower for me, more Legos for the girls. They really made some masterpieces today!
• Special delivery beer dropoff from our friends. The kids were excited to talk to Mr. Hand and Miss Clara through the door and window, too. 😁
• Game of Life after dinner, computer call with good friends in Tazmania, Pat McCurdy safer-at-home concert on Facebook
• Indoor camping for the big 3 again

Come back Monday to see what happens during week 3!

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, COVID-19, aka a novel coronavirus, was deemed a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. 2 days later, on Friday, March 13, our school district announced that we were shutting down for 4 weeks, tentatively reopening on Monday, April 13. The governor of Wisconsin ordered mandatory 4-week school closures to begin by Wednesday, March 18, for all districts.

To say that sent shock waves through my brain would be an understatement. I thought we might be closed for the week after spring break, which was scheduled to be March 23-27, but I never imagined an entire month (or more!) of school closure. Our district has no virtual learning in place either, so everything we’ll be doing at home is not counted as “official” educational minutes. I’m just hopeful that the district waives the educational minutes requirement for this school year, or else we’ll most likely lose our summer vacation entirely. Because I have a funny feeling that we won’t be going back to school on April 13.

Ryan’s work turned to 100% online classes beginning this week, so his office has been a nightmare. They didn’t have all-online infrastructure in place either, so he’s been scrambling like crazy with all the higher-ups to get them up and running as well as possible. Plus a bunch of their professors/deans/CI-whatevers have to self-quarantine right now because they took trips to high-risk areas, so he has to deal with that, too.

However. I’m actually kind of looking forward to this. Being at home with all 5 kids with literally nowhere to go, in fact being told to go nowhere, is kind of my thing. We’ve gotten emails from all their teachers with online resources and ideas for learning during the break, and Lana came home with writing and math packets, too. So I’ve already bookmarked a bunch of cool websites – museums and galleries offering free virtual tours; zoos streaming their animals since they’re all closed, too; authors doing virtual visits; artists sharing daily drawing tutorials; tons and tons of awesome science experiments; NASA’s live International Space Station cam; free online library subscriptions; math and reading programs the kids use at school; and a bunch of videos for dancing, singing, exercising, and learning pretty much anything. We have a very loose schedule in place for the weekdays, but my biggest priority is to have them all treat each other with respect, embrace and hopefully enjoy this change instead of shying away from it, and simply enjoy and remember fondly all this extra time we have together.

I’m going to keep this post as a daily log of what we do each weekday during the shutdown, mainly as a posterity record for myself, but if you’d like to see what we’re up to feel free to check back daily. I’ve certainly never experienced anything like this before, and as Twilight Zone-ish as this all seems, I’m expecting never to again. So here we go!

Monday, March 16, 2020

• Drove to Metro Market with the kids to pick up groceries ordered online. They finally got toilet paper back in stock! (that was probably the craziest part of all this – a toilet paper shortage!)
• Quick exercises with the kids
• Dancing raisins science experiment
• Started watching Frozen II
• Lunch break
• Boys went to nap, the girls and I finished the movie, the girls had writing time
• Lunch doodles with Mo Willems for the big 3
• Dreambox for the big 3

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

• Green pancakes for St. Patrick’s Day breakfast!
• Reading time for the big 3 while I got laundry going and ready for the day
• Long walk to count shamrocks in windows/doors and go down to Big Bay to look for sea glass. It was cold, but we found 60 shamrocks and a surprisingly big haul of sea glass, since the beach is essentially gone down there.
• Dreambox before lunch while I switched laundry loads
• Lunch break
• Experimenting with magnets – what sticks, what doesn’t, homemade magnet fishing
• Naps for the boys while the girls and I went outside to rake and bag up all the leftover leaves from last fall
• TV time while the boys finished napping
• Lunch doodles with Mo Willems
• Cincinnati Zoo live safari for the big 3 – Rico the porcupine. I’m having them each write down 3 facts they learn about that day’s animal.
• Writing time for the girls

March 18, 2020

• Dreambox and Raz Kids/reading for a good hour after breakfast while I cleaned up, vacuumed, and did my workout (I feel a million times better after exercise!)
• Cosmic Kids yoga
• Learning about osmosis and celery stalk/colored water science experiment
• Kids’ cardio exercises
• Lunch break
• Story time from space
• Naps for the boys, girls writing, shower/lunch/clean up for me
• Virtual tours of the British Museum in London and MoMA in NYC – the girls thought both were boring 🤣
• Lunch doodles with Mo Willems and drawing with Narwhal and Jelly (by Squiggles & Scribbles by Ben Clanton) for the big 3

March 19, 2020

• Cosmic Kids yoga
• Jack Hartmann phonics/sight words/letters for L and M; reading for D
• M write around the room – letter O
• P.E. outside – run up and down our side of the block 10 times
• Science – check on colored water celery stalks; Mystery Doug – what makes a rainbow?
• Lunch break
• Naps for the boys, writing and TV time for the girls
• Cincinnati Zoo home safari – Sihil the ocelot, Mo the sloth, and Fiona and Bebe the hippos
• Lunch doodles with Mo Willems
• After-dinner math lessons for each other

March 20, 2020

• Cosmic Kids yoga
• Making birthday cards for a little girl who had to cancel her celebration
• Reading/Alphablocks/Dreambox for an hour while I did my workout
• Weekly email to teachers
• Running through dining room obstacle course, sit-ups, push ups, squats, plank, jumping jacks, and limbo for P.E. class
• Lunch break
• Story time from space
• Nap time for boys, TV time for girls
• Science – last day of celery experiment

I think I’m going to break this all down by week, because this post filled up faster than I expected. So if you’re following along, please come back Monday to see how our social distancing/homeschooling adventure continues to pan out.