First Week of "At Home Learning"

Friday, April 3rd
It's hard to believe this is only the first full week of "At Home Learning"! It seems like we have been doing this for much longer, and the boys have already learned so much! Each day in addition to the regular subjects of Math, Science, Language Arts and Social Studies, they have a daily Spanish Class, Art, Music, Writing Prompts, PE, Virtual Field Trips, Enrichment and Technology, and of course recess and lunch. It's a lot to fit into school day and I am considering rotating subjects where we alternate between Science and Social Studies so they don't have every class each day. It seems we start off sticking to the schedule more closely earlier in the week and we have more flexibility later in the week Last Friday was Fun Friday, and I expect today to be one as well. Yesterday (Thurs) was the day I asked the kids to show me and review the assignments for their school teacher, and our focus was on what the school had assigned, as opposed to M-W when they are learning content from me.

I'm trying to take pictures each day of school, as I hope we will be able to look back on this time fondly!

Here are few highlights of this week:
- Culinary Arts: Marin made cinnamon sugar donuts to eat on Sunday :-)

- Home Economics: Marin learned to sew yesterday, as he talked about how he wished he had a hacky sack, and I suggested he learn to make one.

- Band: Carson was asked in band to learn a new song on his Saxophone.  He picked a song for saxophone, taught himself the song, learned how to transpose and what key he needed an accompaniment for piano, found music in the key of F, taught himself that song on piano, filmed himself playing both instruments, then used iMovie to somehow overlay the 2 tracks. I have no idea how this video editing happens- amazing!

- Art: Marin has been doing a Facebook Live Art class nearly every day with Harptoons Publishing, an author who came to his school last year. Classes are Live @ 1pm CST daily on FB or IG: https://www.facebook.com/harptoons/  Their Art teacher from school has also been posting videos and good assignments Carson has been enjoying.


 - Science: I've learned Science is one of Marin's favorite subjects! Especially anything dealing with animals or rocks! If it were up to him, we would do Science every day or twice a day instead of Social Studies. One of the small tasks I had for him this week was to identify nuts in their shells, and research those he didn't know on his iPad. His favorite part- being able to crack and eat them, of course!

 - Virtual Field trips: Some favorites were Georgia Aquarium and Cincinnati Zoo, Yellowstone National Park & even Mars. How else could you actually visit Mars in school?

Here are the links to Virtual Field trips suggested for this week:

3/30: Guggenheim Museum, New York

3/31: Live Webcams from the Georgia Aquarium

4/1: Mars (Google) Mars (NASA)

4/2:Yellowstone National Park - visit several locations in the park.

4/3:Hubble Control Center - Lobby Hubble Control Center- Operations Room (NASA)

For a calendar of Virtual Links for April and May click here.

The kids have been having and enjoying Zoom classes with their teachers, daily videos from our principal, with daily challenges, themed dress up days and many things the teachers are doing to make this fun and for kids to have a connection with their classmates.

Below is the daily schedule we try to mostly follow, and following is a description of some of the sections:

@ Home Learning Schedule:
Wakeup ☀️ Get dressed
Breakfast 🍳 Brush teeth
9:30 David's Bible video, prayer, pledges (USA, Texas & school)
9:40-9:55 Schedule Review: Check Google Classrooms and write assignements in planner. Update daily schedule
10:00-10:25 Math ➕
10:30-10:55 Science 🔬
11:00-11:15 Writing Prompt  📝
11:15 Snack 🍎 & Reading 
12:00 PE/Exercise/Outdoor Time
12:30 Lunch 🥪
1:00-1:25  Art 🎨
1:30-1:55 Enrichment (Virtual Field Trip, then Religious Education, Home Ec, other topics of interest)
2:00-2:25 Social Studies / Humanities
2:30-2:55 Foreign Language (Spanish)
3:00 Technology Classes  💻 (i.e., Typing, learn a new app, coding, etc)
3:30 Music - Practice instruments 🎵
4:00  "Dismissal"
Snack 🍎 Go Outside 🌳
4:30 Free time - 

Each morning we begin the day with a short "Breakfast & the Bible" video by our Beach Club Bible Teacher and Neighbor Mr. David Huey that he shares via our Panther Beach Club Facebook Page (Thank you David!!), followed a prayer and standing to say the three pledges (US, Texas & our school..."I came to school to learn and I will learn, I will have a great day"). This really helps get our minds focused on school and gets the day off to a good start. This is the only time of the day I require Collin to be with us, though he eats lunch and dinner with us as well.

Next we review the schedule for the day and I ask for everyone to tell me their zoom classes and review assignments for their teachers that are due, which they need to write in their planners.

One of my favorite parts of the day is Writing, where I give them a "Writing Prompt" each day and all of us have 10 minutes to write, myself included. It's been great to hear what they're thinking, and it gives me 10 minutes of quiet to tune everything else out and type.

Spanish is also going pretty well. We usually do it on the back porch since the boys are pretty wound up by the end of the day, and Mike is often on a conference call. I wonder what the construction workers across the creek think when they hear us attempting to speak their language! So far we have learned numbers, colors, days of the week, months of the year and put these into practice asking and answering questions, such as: "Quantos anos tiene, Que es la fecha hoy? Que dia es hoy? y Como te llamas?"

The boys also like typing, and any technology. There have been a few days I've let them off early to do Minecraft for their technology class. Of course that is their most favorite part of the day, but they are coming around and getting into a groove with the rest the subjects too!