Homeschool take 1

With COVID-19 in pandemic status, the governor mandated that all schools be closed for two weeks, which was then extended two more weeks, and finally last week they announced that schools will be closed for the rest of the school year. So since Spring Break ended, my mom and I have been team teaching school. Since Todd has work and Savannah has law school, their kids come and do school with my kids. The first week was a lot of trial and error. Figuring out how to keep 8 kids in 7 different grades occupied and productive was a little tricky. And most have some online aspect, so we had to figure out how to apportion the computers and the tablets so they could get done what they needed. By the second week we figured out a schedule that worked ok and it went pretty smooth.

My kids start their official day at 8am with a rotation of chores, piano, and scripture reading for 20 minutes each. Ryan is super on top of things in the mornings, and he is often done with everything before 8am. I love coming down to read my scriptures at 6:15 or 6:30 and he is sitting on the couch with his scriptures open and taking notes in his Come Follow Me notebook I made for each of the kids at the beginning of the year. He loves his new quad he got for his birthday and is really eating up the scriptures. 

 The Knights come over sometime in the 8:00 hour and play outside (morning recess) until school starts at 9:00. The elementary school has been producing their daily broadcast that the kids usually watch at school with announcements, the pledge, and usually pictures of some staff members participating in the virtual spirit day (they have one planned every day to help the kids feel connected). The kids love it, and it's a good way to officially start our school day.

To start school, we do 30 minutes of Spanish, a lot of it using Rockalingua, which has catchy songs that help the kids learn the vocabulary. Here they're learning their colors:

And learning names of frutas:

 I love that they can just lay down on the rug as part of school. There are some perks to school at home.

After Spanish the kids split for school work, half on computers/tablets, the other half doing school work or lessons with Grandma for 45 minutes. They get recess and snack for 30 minutes, then come back in for 45 more minutes of schoolwork, switching who is on/off of electronics. Except for Rachel. Pretty much all her school work is online so she just has a computer the entire time. Then at 11:30 we do an art project until noon when the Knights go home for lunch. At 1:30 we have either PE or science or another special activity at Grandma Knight's house for about an hour.

The first week we did school Peyton and McKenzie came out and joined us for a couple of days of school (with a sleepover at Grandma's as a bonus). It was fun having them do school with us. Unfortunately, since Marie works at a nursing home we don't want to take any chances of spreading Coronavirus, so we are just video chatting occasionally now instead. They plan to join us (virtually) for art at least one of the days this week.

 Grandma has great lessons with the younger kids every day, reading books, playing math games, teaching them how to tell time, and all sorts of fun.

We've done a variety of art projects...

nature art:

 Drawing on Art for Kids Hub on YouTube:

 We've done Calvin (not on Art for Kids Hub, which made us appreciate the effective teaching of the Art for Kids Hub guy):

 Garfield and Odie...

 And we've done some rock painting and chalk art:

The kids have participated in some of the virtual spirit days. We take a picture and share it on Facebook where they can see some friends and staff members' pictures, too.
Some they've done are:
Crazy Hair Day:

 Hat day (we went on a hike to Cienega Creek Preserve that day):

 Read outside day:

 And every Friday is Spirit Day (wear your school shirt or colors):

 The first Friday of no school the teachers did a car parade to drive around the neighborhoods and wave at all the kids. It was awesome and the kids and teachers loved it.

 Unfortunately the governor issued a stay at home order last week, so the teachers can't do the car parade like they were planning to do every Friday. But at least we got one in.

Every afternoon Grandma's house is the hot spot for fun. Some days the kids just jump on the trampoline run around for PE to get their energy out, but she plans a (usually science) lesson a couple times a week, and organized activities at least part of each PE day.

The kids learned about chemical reactions by watching Bill Nye and making volcanoes in the back yard, and freezing their own ice cream.

PE with water is always fun. They got a double slip 'n slide for lots of fun:

 And this past week they put up a new above ground pool for more water fun. Add in jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler and water balloons and these kids are loving Water Wednesday PE.

For PE and science we went on a hike to the Cienega Creek Preserve. The kids built a dam, made moss balls, and noticed little wigglers in the water. We wished we had a microscope. Then the next day Ms. Bradshaw loaned us one for the rest of the school year, so we need to go back and get a sample of the water to see what we can see.

 Grandma planned a great math lesson involving 2D and 3D shapes, then the kids built some shapes and dipped them in bubble solution. The 3D shapes turned out really cool after you pulled it out of the bubble solution.

Fridays we do a bit different than the rest of the week since Savannah doesn't have classes, so her kids stay home. We do a few extra chores on Friday, so they have a little more time than normal for chores instead of having Spanish. Then at 9:30 we do writing, specifically in their journals so they can remember this unique time in history, then it's creative time until 10:30. Creative time is mostly doing a Lego Challenge from a list I printed out. Or they can choose something else, but they seem to like the Lego option. Then at 10:30 or thereabouts we watch Mark Rober science videos on YouTube since he is doing live science classes 3 times a week (which we never manage to catch live). Then lunch and free time.
I am really enjoying school at home more than I thought I would (I am very grateful for the teachers providing materials for the kids to do), but by Thursday afternoon I am ready for a nice break from the mental effort. And just in time. I am so grateful for my mom for helping make this happen. She is a huge help. Having just 8 kids seems like not too hard compared to the 30 kids in some of my kids' classes. But they are almost all in different grades (except Eloise and Annie), so it does complicate things. But we can do this. Vail School District is running with this motto during the school closure: We got this. And so far we do.