Update and Swimming Laps

Hello Friends ! I’ve missed you. Things have just been CR-AZY busy lately. Let me fill you in. I know you are sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for my exciting life updates. haha

Kitchen

The kitchen face lift went really well. Not without a few hiccups of course but overall really well. I’m hesitating showing you before and after pictures yet because we are still waiting on some finishing touches that will make a difference in how it looks. So… hang tight. It’s coming. Depends on how long our countertop will take to come in.

School 

Right after the kitchen was wrapped up for the most part, we jumped right into school. But we had some last minute changes. Our school is fairly small and was able to abide by all safety regulations required of them even at full capacity. After submitting their safety plan, it was all approved but were told they have to at least offer remote learning to families. After discussing the pro’s and con’s of going back full time and pro’s and con’s of full time remote learning, taking Ashlyn’s dislike of school and learning into consideration, we chose the remote learning. This is for at least the first quarter, and we will then go from there. We were soooo hoping for the 50-50 hybrid thing that many schools are doing. Ashlyn would do really, really with that set up.

Anyhow, things were thrown into remote learning pretty quickly. Teachers weren’t really preparing for that, they were preparing for them all to come back. Several families that I know chose to pull their kids out and go to homeschooling. I didn’t have enough information on that to make a very informed decision for that amount of responsibility. While e-learning at the moment, I am educating myself greatly on homeschooling in our state. Just because we don’t know what the future holds for our kids and education while in this pandemic and how long things with last, so I want to be prepared.

E-learning / Remote Learning

How is it going you ask? It’s been a very rocky start. But I feel like this next week will smooth out better. Ashlyn is in Jr High so we don’t deal with just 1 teacher anymore. She has several, 1 for each class. Some teachers post their assignments on the school remote learning page, some teachers post in the google classrooms that they are using, some post in both spots, some use email, and some solely use Kahn Academy.  Once we got in sync with each teacher I stopped drinking so much. (joke, just a joke). We have one day a week that we pick up any materials needed and we drop off anything she’s done with. Otherwise things are printed or filled out and uploaded or via google classroom. Last week was the first full week and things seemed very heavy on some days and very light on others. Again, I feel like there were a lot of communication gaps to start with that seem to have be worked out now. Having said that, I’m not complaining. I give enormous amounts of kuddos to all teachers !!! They are teaching in class and kids at home. So I didn’t expect it to go perfectly. Everyone (them and us) have a lot on our plate and count on each other to work together. I feel like we are much more on the same page now and things will be tweaked and smoother this week.

As for Ashlyn?

She loves it. She does so much better one on one. She’s a student that needs a little extra help (which she gets at school as well). She misses the fun parts of school but definitely likes and does better with the one on one instruction. Plus her current teacher can be meaner and force her to work to her full potential. Legally, the teachers at school cannot use the same tactics as us Moms do. haha  We still contemplate homeschooling permanently for this reason but we all hate for her to miss out on so much fun and social stuff at school. So no harsh decisions yet.

The best perk by far is PE Class. This week has been a scorcher in our area. So at school they are doing a very short workout then doing an assignment on their Chromebooks inside. We had the option depending if we were able to do a workout without jeopardizing health in the heat. She swam laps, had races and did water calisthenics for 90 minutes each day all this past week. She’ll do anything physical over a written assignment any day, haha. Especially when it involves water.

If we are still remote learning this winter, I will not miss getting up at 4:00 am to shovel our driveway and taking her to school. Swimming and no driving in the winter definitely go under our pro list (in my opinion).

I hope all of you are doing well with whatever options your school has for you. I hope your children are doing well in their situation. We are in this together people. Be kind. Have grace on those teachers as I hope they have grace for you too. No one asked for this craziness but we can sure work together to get through it. Do the best you can.