4 Months of Social Distancing from COVID-19

Dear Kiddos, 

This week marks 4 months of staying home due to COVID-19. By now, we are in a pretty good groove and I've come to accept that time alone will happen after you guys go to bed. I've started to embrace the  time that we have together instead of viewing it as an intrusion of my personal time. 

Hannah, you have now joined us in the evenings for downstairs time. This is the extra 30 minutes of time you get to spend downstairs before having to go to bed. We usually read a chapter of Harry Potter or play board games. This past week we introduced you to Settlers of Catan. You are really enjoying board games now and will ask to play more complicated games beyond Chutes and Ladders. 

Hailey, I've been trying to reinforce your ability to recognize numbers, letters, and colors with board games. You love Spinderella and it's neat to see you use problem solving to figure out the puzzle. 

We have not been going to the pool as often as we'd like, but when we do go, we go in the morning when there is maybe only 2-3 other families present. We usually claim a small corner of the pool and hang out there. Hailey, you finally agreed to get on a float! 

Daddy's birthday was also this past week and so we made a decorated a mint chocolate chip cake for him. You girls helped with most of the decorating. 

This week was Collage Art week, so we made different collages out of different types of paper and other material. Here are some of the masterpieces. 

Hailey, you still love cutting things up and will sit and cut up a piece of paper for 45 minutes. You occasionally will get so excited and show me shapes like diamonds and triangles. "Yook, Mommy, a diamond!" 

Collaging has been quite crazy. Everyday there is an abundant amount of scraps on the ground. You guys are usually pretty good about cleaning up, but I secretly think that Hailey is secretly stashing all of those little pieces of paper around. 

One day you guys made bee collages and then decided to make a stop motion video. 

Everyday we add onto our COVID gallery. We are definitely half way up the wall. I'm hoping for our sanity's sake that we don't have to fill up this entire wall with art. 

This past week I also reorganized the upstairs playroom. We used to have most of the furniture pushed to the perimeter of the room, so when you guys would play, everything ended up in the middle of the room. It was chaotic, overwhelming and simply not easy to clean. With this new arrangement, I've formed multiple zones for things to be played in, so it will be easier to see what goes where when you are finished playing. I've purged a lot more toys and put most of it in a closet. I will be switching the toys out every few weeks. You guys have already played with toys that you haven't played with in a long time. 

Another thing that has been going on this past few days is the decision to homeschool you guys in the fall. COVID-19 numbers are not great. I'm thinking AISD will be putting out a one-size-fits all curriculum, which will bore Nathan and possibly not be able to fill any gaps that Hannah may have. We are fortunate to be able to have a choice to homeschool, so I want to take advantage of that. 

I've been researching all sorts of curriculum and I think I've found some programs that will challenge you guys just the right amount. The tough part about curriculum selection is that many times you don't have the booklet in front of you to see what will work best. Thank goodness for Youtube reviews over the products. 

Another issue comes with finding your pod. We've been meeting up with some of Hannah's school friends (who happen to also live super close to us in the neighborhood) to play some mornings. I mentioned to the moms that I was thinking of creating a pod of people to partially homeschool together. Just like that, we have 4 interested families. And then I want to have Nathan be able to homeschool with your friends, but I don't feel safe if the number of families grows to be too big. I'm still going to have to work everything out and I want to make this whole experience enjoyable and memorable for everyone. 

I'm writing all of this knowing that we are extremely privileged to even have the choice to homeschool. So many families have essential worker members where homeschooling in a pod is not even an option. So the children don't have an option but to either risk their health by attending school on-site, or be educated virtually. I'm praying that the virtual options will be effective and will be able to support higher-needs students and their families.