First "Official" Day of At Home Learning

Today we got a late start on the official start of the day. I was up @ 5AM to do my Bible Study & plan the week; however, I let the boys sleep in since Collin has had a sore throat. Given that the reason we are doing all this is because of a virus, I think our first priority is for us all to stay well, and if that means teenagers sleeping in (to a certain extent), we're going to do it!

One of my friends from the gym is doing her own Facebook live classes on Monday morning, so since only Marin was awake I decided to go ahead and participate in the dance class. It was raining outside so we adjusted and did PE first. 

That meant that instead of starting @ 9:30, it was 10:30 before we were all together to watch the Beach Club video. Marin did some floor exercises, and Carson did some pull ups. After breakfast and unloading the dishwasher the first assignment was to check Google Classroom for any assignments from the teachers.

10:30 - Beach Club Video, prayer & pledges

10:40 - Check Google classroom & apps and review assignments, write in planner

      * Carson was being disrespectful so he got sent upstairs to work in the office
     - Collin actually stayed with us for longer than I would have expected
     - Since Collin's teachers posted all of his assignments for the entire week he's feeling a bit overwhelmed.

11:00 - Math. Marin used the prodigy app on his iPad.
            Carson completed some of his assignments from his teachers upstairs.

11:30 - Science - Marin listed to a video on Boats floating and answered a few questions
            
Noon - Time for a break!  It's raining so usually kids would be sent outside, but we just had "recess" indoors and got ready for lunch

12:30 - Carson decides he wants to do band earlier today since Mike will be on conference calls at the scheduled band time. He gets out his saxophone and continues learning "Heart Will Go On". This is actually the most we have ever heard him play sax. He decides he wants to accompany himself on piano for a recording he can submit to his band teacher. He asks for help on what to play for left hand and I remind him about chords and arpeggios. I give him a video to watch about transposing, since piano is in the key of C sax is in E flat. His sax music is in the key of D, so we find piano music in the key of F. He practices until Mike tells him to stop (1:40)

1:45 - WRITING. Kids are given a choice of writing prompts for today:

• "If someone wrote a book about you, what would it be about?"
• "Create your own holiday.  What would you celebrate?  How could you get others to join in the fun?" 

Carson chose the first, and Marin chose the second.

2:00 - ZOOM class - Carson had a Zoom with his classroom
Marin begged to do typing on the computer. We have several good resources (typing.com, typetastic and Nitrotype (Marin loves Race) but my stubborn 8-yr-old doesn't want to start at the beginning because it's "boring" but he wants to do the Middle School and High school games like his brothers (#3rdChildProblems).

2:30- Carson finishes his Zoom class and wants to join Marin typing, so I let him. I'm able to get some emails done and catch up on some other work, such as researching new health insurance options (again!!!)

3:00 - SPANISH - Mike is on a conference call so we go outside to do Spanish since they're noisy. I wonder what the construction workers on the other side of the creek think, as I'm sure they can hear my noisy boys practicing their NEWly learned skill. (this is day 3 of Spanish, by the way). The 1st day we did numbers, 2nd day, days of the week and numbers review. Day 3 I opted for more of a discussion mode. I speak only in Spanish (which annoys them), but I talk slowing and with gestures in hopes that they will pay attention and figure out what I'm saying.  

For Ex: "Como te llamas?"  Me llamo Tracy.  (Carson actually picked a new name - Alfredo LOL! Marin is currently going by his name with a Spanish accent, but he's considering Mario).

Quantos hermanos tiene? Yo tengo un hermano y ningun hermanas. Su padre (pointing) tiene dos hermanAS y cero hermanOS.  I repeat several times, and talk about easy concepts, hoping they'll catch on. Eventually they see I'm not giving up and start guessing.

Quantos anos tiene? Tengo dos anos. Tu tiene ocho anos? Quantos anos tiene su hermano?

3:30 - Dismissal - Since Carson has already practiced his piano and saxophone, and Marin doesn't really have any interest in learning an instrument other than the recorder. I guess we will have to try the stupid recorder.  

I downloaded a new app for checklists, and shared "Things to find in Minecraft" with Carson.

So - today we very loosely followed the schedule. I'm OK with that. I'm OK with our late start. In fact, tomorrow we will likely start late too, as I have Bible Study via Zoom @ 9:30. My goal will be to review the schedule and start a little earlier (with the promise they'll get out earlier), and have them do their own schoolwork while I'm on my Zoom.  We will see how that works!