Thoughts on Distance Learning

Or we should really just call it homeschooling using someone else's lesson plans. I really believed that I would be a really good "teacher" for my children this week while we stayed quarentined due to the swine flu. I realized yesterday that I pretty much stink!! I have all of these great ideas of how to make learning fun for the kids, but it seemed that the minute I started one of them on something and then started a different activity with the other two, child 1 would need assistance, and it just kept going in a vicious cycle. Homeschoolers must be extremely organized and have a very structured routine because if we got off schedule, I lost focus and the kids were off playing, not to be seen for about two hours! It probably didn't help that I was arguing back and forth with my travel agent about her price for our October holiday trip (in the end I had to semi-fire her - she booked the airlines and I booked the hotels!). See here I go - completely not focused! How in the world did I ever teach a class??!!

I must say that the lessons plans provided by the teachers were fantastic. I was amazed that they could put together appropriate work for the children after only having them in class for 1 week. They tried to stay on track with their plans, but at the same time they added fun things for the kids to do! One day we made playdough for Coop's class, we took a nature walk for Eensie's class (all we really found were some crazy looking bugs, but that's okay), and today we made pancakes in a cup for El's assignment!

We made sure we went outside at least twice a day to play with some of our neighbors, which was a refreshing break for me also. By today I was seriously craving some adult time!! Thank goodness Karen had the same thoughts as me and we were able to wind down with a bit of a happy hour while the kids rode bikes and played water guns!

I believe I have earned my pay this week!!

On a side note, as far as we know, all of the children who had swine flu have recovered! I was able to have a small chat with my sweet little neighbor yesterday (through a window, of course) - he looks great and can't wait to get out of the house!! Thank you to all who have written and been concerned. We will continue to pray that this flu stays mild!!