I Never Planned to Homeschool

Like most of us stuck attempting to teach our children during this time, I never planned to home school!  Motherhood has been full of second guessing myself from birth, but one thing I've been pretty sure of is that I never would be a "home school mom". Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for moms who home school, I just never thought it was for me. But...in this Pandemic of 2020 EVERYTHING has changed and schools are closed, so what choice do we have?

I remember being shocked when Italy went on lock down less than a month ago and schools closed. I considered the idea of that happening to us and had a after-school playground discussion about it with other moms (oh, those were the days!), but I don't think we, or many Americans actually thought it would happen to us. 

But as school events and sports leagues, ski resorts and beaches closed approaching our Spring Break, it became clear that it would be an almost certain reality after our "Spring Break" was "over". Thursday, March 12th was scheduled to be our 2nd Grade Musical that my youngest son and his classmates had been working so hard preparing for and were so excited to perform for us. The evening before the performance we got a call saying it was cancelled (which my 2nd grader and I are still upset about). Thursday they announced they would be sending iPads home with the kids on their last day, Friday, March 13th (yes, Friday the 13th) "in the event that kids did not return to school on Monday, March 23rd (my birthday)."  "In the event"?? HA HA!  At this point I knew there was no way we would be going back, for what I figured was at least two weeks and maybe not at all this school year. 

Unfortunately I didn't even get to say goodbye to teachers or friends at pickup, because I went to the grocery store to pick up some additional food for families at our school who rely on free meals at the school to feed their children. I thought an hour would be plenty of time for a "quick" trip to the store to pick up a few items; however, the event took over an hour and a half because of long lines and panic at the grocery store. (I have yet to visit a regular grocery store since this Friday, the 13th).

At this point I was also preparing for our ski trip, as we were leaving the next morning for Colorado, and hoping there would be food in the small town of Salida, CO where we planned to stay while we skied Monarch Mountain. Yet, like many things in this Pandemic, little did we know that was just the beginning of the concerns, and we wouldn't get to ski due to the mandated closing of all ski resorts.

Driving thru to Colorado	1 quick overnight in Salida, CO

Long story short, we did not get to ski despite trying to get ahead of the closings by driving all the way to Salida on Saturday, then driving back to NM Sunday morning and landing in Santa Fe. We enjoyed two nice days with our good friends there hiking and letting the kids sled, and our "last supper" at a restaurant on March 16th, as we learned that all restaurants in Dallas would be closed.

Hiking with the family in Santa Fe	And good friend Tara
"The Last Supper" @ an Italian restaurant with BFFs	Pilgrimage to El Chimayo on 1st Sun w/o mass

We stayed in Santa Fe until Tuesday, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day) and drove back to Dallas. In the car ride I researched school schedules, online resources for "home schooling" and joined several Facebook groups that were sharing good ideas. I will have to admit this was all pretty overwhelming to me, and this was supposed to still be Spring Break where I was supposed to be participating in my favorite activity in the world - Skiing with my family in great snow! So I read articles and thought about what I wanted our at home learning to look like, but in truth I really feared going back home and being quarantined and stuck at my house! 

I'm a goal-oriented extrovert who thrives in busyness of juggling multiple schedules, almost to a fault. I have Attention Deficit Disorder, I am NOT a home body and I have struggled during times of no structure (such as summer) or even just anticipating summer when kids would be off. To the idea of being stuck at home with my children and husband for an "indefinite period of time", with no activities, practices, games, or even sports to watch on TV was actually terrifying. 

I knew it was imperative that I create a schedule for my sanity, and for the betterment of my children. I know home-schooling doesn't need to take as long as a school day, but without other activities or being able to see friends I knew my kids would want to spend whatever time they're allowed on video games. And 4PM-9PM is plenty of free time, so the schedule we adopted is close to a full school day, much to my children's' chagrin.

Thankfully, I've been energized by the challenge of teaching them during this time, and committed to making the best of our situation! In fact, I got so into researching all of the resources and have been having a hard time keeping them all straight, so I decided to start this blog... WELCOME! :-)

Chalk Writings at our Elementary School