Back to school (kind of)

 After a very nice and relaxing Christmas Break the kids started school back up last Monday. Because there have been spikes in number of COVID cases, and therefore the number of classes needing to quarantine, 3 weeks after Fall Break and 3 weeks after Thanksgiving, our school district decided to do remote learning for 3 weeks to avoid having as many classes needing to quarantine. And with Marie working every night because one of her co-workers had to quarantine for 2 weeks, we had her girls here doing school with us last week, too. It went very smoothly. Megan had 2 days where it was rough to get back into the swing of things and she just wanted to be back at in person school, but she adjusted, and with the promise of 5 extra minutes of reading time at bedtime if she had a good attitude for school, she was great. 

This time around there are more online conferences with the kids' teachers, so the schedule is a little crazy to keep track of--I have 25 alarms set on my phone during school hours. Some are for every day, some just for M/W or T/Th, or a few that are just for one day. The kids have figured out things pretty well, so I think when I have to take Ryan to an appointment this week they'll be fine as long as I have alarms reminding them when it's time to get on. I so appreciate all the kids' teachers and the school district's efforts to make this an effective teaching tool. My kids are doing great, but will be happy to get back to in person learning in 2 more weeks. 

Online learning does make for more time to play games and have free time (both online and offline). The new games everyone got for Christmas have been put to good use. 

Megan has used some of her free time when she gets done with her work before anyone else to work on puzzles. Or sometimes to go outside and play, or even go over to Grandma's house to hang out for a while. 

Ryan loves online free time. He is allowed chunks of 15 minutes if he gets all his work done and still has time before his next conference. He discovered code.org this week and has loved playing around with it, creating his own program with Minecraft to have a herd of sheep follow him around, while zombies or something chase the sheep trying to kill them. He was excited to show B when he came over one day after he was done with his school work.

However, the pull of free time is a little too strong for Ryan sometimes and he's lost the privilege once already for continuing to play after his 15 minutes was up. 

Last night Rachel and Jacob and Jared got to listen to a special youth devotional for the Tucson area youth with Elder Renlund and a couple other general authorities and their wives. I got to hear the last half after I got the other kids put to bed and it was great. They did some Q&A with the youth able to text their questions or concerns. I'm grateful that technology is allowing spiritual experiences to continue even when there is limited travel and limited gatherings. Vaccines are rolling out and this week the teachers in the district should be getting them. Every step is one closer to returning to life as normal.