The First Week of School

I just want to check in to see how the first week(s) of school is going? School started for my sons on the 15th. It is unique, to say the least, as I am sure it is for everyone else. My good thoughts are with all families – no matter what their plan of attack might look like.

This year, my oldest son began his senior year of high school. I am sure he never thought he would begin his last year of high school fully remotely. Then again, I never thought this day would come so fast. The majority of his sentences start, “After I graduate…” I never knew that I could feel such pride and fear at the exact same time.

My youngest son is in a bit of a limbo situation. Last year, he went to a half-day preschool and was set to start kindergarten this year. When we moved this summer, so did the cut-off date for kindergarten – from needing to be 5 years old by 12/31/20 to instead needing to be 5 years old by 9/1/20. My son will turn 5 on 11/9/20, so he will wait one more year and start kindergarten next year in the town we now live. I am not upset about that at all really My son will start kindergarten with groups of kids he will attend school with for at least the next few years. Hopefully, if we have pandemic situations next year, at least the schools will have that much longer to tweak the system. This school year my 4 yr son and I are not sitting around … we are doing our own school day! I am not educated as a teacher, but I have been a mom for 17+ years. I am surrounded by smart creative people. So, I made us a little routine … I am open to ideas and still working on timing but here it is….

10am calendar/weather/plans – we go over the date, days of the week, months of the year, he goes on the back patio and feels the temperature according to him and tells me if the sun is out, we go over plans for the day and week
10:15am workbook – he works on whatever is next in his big kindergarten workbook
10:30am sign – we review the sings we learned earlier in the week and add a few new ones we are working with an introductory to sign language book
10:45am science – right now we’re learning about different animals in a National Geographic workbook
11am reading – phonics work/ letter tracing/ I read out loud right now, “The Witches” by Roald Dahl
11:30am chores -helps put his clean clothes away, start laundry, put his books on his bookshelf
11:45am flashcards – right now we are reviewing letters upper case and lower case and numbers 1-26
12pm game time – every day he picks a game or a puzzle to do together
1pm lunch and recess – we eat lunch together and he has free time to play with his toys or we play outside in the yard
2pm math -counting coins, identifying the different kinds, sorting them into piles
2:15pm read out loud
2:30pm special – art, gym, music, baking

As you can see there is wiggle room for Mom’s many bathroom breaks for example. I also am trying to accommodate a 4-year-old’s short attention span. How and what can I do differently? What are the kids in your life doing? Good luck to all this school year!