We Survived Distance Learning
School ended two weeks ago for the girls. I had my final inservice sessions last week. It was challenging in many ways and we are so ready for some calmer family time without navigating the world of online learning.
A few things that were hard:
School in general: The girls' school did a phenomenal job navigating how to help students continue to learn. We all missed out on a lot of favorite events for the year (States Fair, States Fair trip to RI and NYC, COE trip to Arkansas, Orff/Recorder/Drum (ORD) travel day to perform at schools, ORD Music Sharing, 3rd Trimester Music Sharing). We missed seeing our friends and coworkers and teachers. We missed the normal routine. Both girls gave their best effort and I did as well. But we did it.
Zoom meetings: Girls learning through Zoom calls where each person is a tiny rectangle. The delay was terrible many days due to internet issues on our end and the number of people on their computers at the same time. But we did it.
LMS (learning management system): For us this was Schoology. Spending time each day helping my advisees find their schedules and answering any questions they had about assignments. Spending time each day helping Riley sort through all the many ways that her assignments and Zoom calls were posted. Spending time each day helping Julia log into Google Classroom and then writing out her schedule of assignments. But we did it.
Things that were sunshine moments:
Getting Out: The girls rarely went out. In fact during the school days Riley spent almost every waking moment in her room. We did some bike rides each day for a while. This morphed into doing yoga each night after Julia's bike tires didn't want to stay inflated well and squeaked strangely. Sometimes Julia creates yoga workouts and then guides us through her poses or sometimes we do a Peloton app video. Many times Riley and I are doing the Peloton videos and Julia is laying on her back with her knees over her head in some contorted shape. Many times she's also talking and talking and talking or making sounds. Many times one of us farts and we all crack up laughing. Our nightly time stretching together has been one of my favorite parts of quarantine.
I also made time every day to go for a run or some intervals of walk/run. Even for ten minutes. I found that this elevated my mood, helped me get out some stress, and allowed me a little space.
Gas: Speaking of gas, the prices of gas have been so cheap. $1.27 was what I put in the tank the last time I went out. I think I've had to fill my car's tank three times over the last 12 weeks. Maybe even only twice. We're not getting out much at all and for weeks on end the girls didn't leave the house except for our bike rides or walking Val now and again. Even though we're not needing much gas it's still great knowing it's so cheap.
Julia's New Bed: We were able to get a full size bed for Jules and a new mattress for it. Such a blessing! She loves it and so do we. We moved her twin bed upstairs and have cleaned out the bonus room so that it's ready for guests if anyone comes over.
Reading: Each night I read a devotional and a book with Julia before bed. During quarantine Riley and I decided that I'd spend every Thursday night with her. She said she only wanted one night together. So Jeremy reads with Julia on Thursdays. Julia shared with me that she closes her eyes and tries really hard to fall asleep fast because otherwise if Jeremy falls asleep before her, he snores so loudly she can't sleep. Ha!
On all of the other nights that I sit with Julia in her bed to read and do the devotional, Riley has begun to join us. So the three of us sit together now every night. We end up talking a lot. The girls argue a lot. But it's good for them and I love the together time with them.
Waking Up: After waking up almost every day this year around 5 - 5:15am, it was a blessing to sleep until 7am every morning. The girls slept until 7:30 and some days (if they didn't have early morning Zoom meetings) they even slept until 9 or later.
There's so much hard and so much good that has come of this time. Each day came with it's struggles - whether I was in a funky place or one of the girls were; whether we were tired of the daily grind; whether we wanted to be around other people (Julia once texted my mom saying, "Help me please. I can't stay with these people). But we are grateful for weeks of summer ahead of us to rest a bit more and have a different pace than any part of this past school year. It'll definitely be one we remember.
A few things that were hard:
School in general: The girls' school did a phenomenal job navigating how to help students continue to learn. We all missed out on a lot of favorite events for the year (States Fair, States Fair trip to RI and NYC, COE trip to Arkansas, Orff/Recorder/Drum (ORD) travel day to perform at schools, ORD Music Sharing, 3rd Trimester Music Sharing). We missed seeing our friends and coworkers and teachers. We missed the normal routine. Both girls gave their best effort and I did as well. But we did it.
Zoom meetings: Girls learning through Zoom calls where each person is a tiny rectangle. The delay was terrible many days due to internet issues on our end and the number of people on their computers at the same time. But we did it.
LMS (learning management system): For us this was Schoology. Spending time each day helping my advisees find their schedules and answering any questions they had about assignments. Spending time each day helping Riley sort through all the many ways that her assignments and Zoom calls were posted. Spending time each day helping Julia log into Google Classroom and then writing out her schedule of assignments. But we did it.
Things that were sunshine moments:
Getting Out: The girls rarely went out. In fact during the school days Riley spent almost every waking moment in her room. We did some bike rides each day for a while. This morphed into doing yoga each night after Julia's bike tires didn't want to stay inflated well and squeaked strangely. Sometimes Julia creates yoga workouts and then guides us through her poses or sometimes we do a Peloton app video. Many times Riley and I are doing the Peloton videos and Julia is laying on her back with her knees over her head in some contorted shape. Many times she's also talking and talking and talking or making sounds. Many times one of us farts and we all crack up laughing. Our nightly time stretching together has been one of my favorite parts of quarantine.
I also made time every day to go for a run or some intervals of walk/run. Even for ten minutes. I found that this elevated my mood, helped me get out some stress, and allowed me a little space.
Gas: Speaking of gas, the prices of gas have been so cheap. $1.27 was what I put in the tank the last time I went out. I think I've had to fill my car's tank three times over the last 12 weeks. Maybe even only twice. We're not getting out much at all and for weeks on end the girls didn't leave the house except for our bike rides or walking Val now and again. Even though we're not needing much gas it's still great knowing it's so cheap.
Julia's New Bed: We were able to get a full size bed for Jules and a new mattress for it. Such a blessing! She loves it and so do we. We moved her twin bed upstairs and have cleaned out the bonus room so that it's ready for guests if anyone comes over.
Reading: Each night I read a devotional and a book with Julia before bed. During quarantine Riley and I decided that I'd spend every Thursday night with her. She said she only wanted one night together. So Jeremy reads with Julia on Thursdays. Julia shared with me that she closes her eyes and tries really hard to fall asleep fast because otherwise if Jeremy falls asleep before her, he snores so loudly she can't sleep. Ha!
On all of the other nights that I sit with Julia in her bed to read and do the devotional, Riley has begun to join us. So the three of us sit together now every night. We end up talking a lot. The girls argue a lot. But it's good for them and I love the together time with them.
Waking Up: After waking up almost every day this year around 5 - 5:15am, it was a blessing to sleep until 7am every morning. The girls slept until 7:30 and some days (if they didn't have early morning Zoom meetings) they even slept until 9 or later.
There's so much hard and so much good that has come of this time. Each day came with it's struggles - whether I was in a funky place or one of the girls were; whether we were tired of the daily grind; whether we wanted to be around other people (Julia once texted my mom saying, "Help me please. I can't stay with these people). But we are grateful for weeks of summer ahead of us to rest a bit more and have a different pace than any part of this past school year. It'll definitely be one we remember.
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