On the afternoon of March 12, 2020 I was sucker punched with the reality that for the next SIX WEEKS I was going to need to homeschool my kids without any aid from the school district or therapists, all while working and navigating a global shutdown. I let myself have a good cry, then comforted myself that it was ONLY six Mondays. I could do six Mondays.
Little did I know. *covid laughs maniacally in my direction*
The day before classes were supposed to start in September, the school district called to essentially say 'we don't know what to do with students with special needs and the current covid guidelines, you're on your own, but we'll keep you posted.' Wait, what?! I took an immediate leave of absence from work and hunkered down for another six Mondays. Five Monday's later, there was a plan for Mila in Middle School but not for Isaac in Elementary School and decisions had to be made. I cried---HARD, then made the call to withdraw Isaac from school to formally pursue homeschooling. Somehow while working fulltime. Oh, sweet Jesus, help us.
Gramma signed on for morning "Gramma School" that included Outschool classes--three courses of ASL, hip hop dancing, weird animal life sciences and beat boxing. They also powered through weekly typing classes and online art in addition to review math and reading worksheets. Then I raced home from work at lunch to focus on as many new skills I could present in the few hours we had before picking up Mila, online speech therapy and whatever work issues I needed to address.
There were many, many, MANY afternoons of absolute frustration. He either wasn't getting it or wasn't in to it. (Don't get me started on skip-counting). BUT, we did have afternoons that clicked. I figured out a way to teach something and it made sense to his brain! (Fractions!!) Oh boy those were good afternoons. And there were afternoons when it was more important to just sit and listen to me read the Mouse and the Motorcycle. Other afternoons that teacher & student were locked in a power of wills as to exactly how many sentences were going to be written before being allowed to color. (The answer is SIX). My favorite was the fit of boy giggles when being asked to spell "but". He couldn't breathe he was laughing so hard!
Even as I write the sentence I would NEVER sign up to do this again, I am proud of Isaac and I, and thankful for Gramma. We did a hard thing. My personal goal was for him to not loose any ground, but he actually gained solid skills in a lot of areas. See his letter writing below; he went from two random sentences on a notecard to two page letters of well spaced, well thought out, grammatically correct correspondence. In fact, he wrote a letter to Alexander Hamilton (Lin Manuel Miranda) and got a letter back! He can add any three or four digit math problem as long as it is grocery related and found new skills in art, music...and chores, I mean "life skills" ;) Isaac would probably say his favorite part was not needing to wear pants--that is going to be a tough reality check on September 8th.
We took our math show on the road! We were only asked once by the Safeway staff if we needed any help. That felt like a win.
The Three Rs weren't the only things in the curriculum:
We did it. It was crazy hard, but we did it. (Now, let's not have to do it again...)
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