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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

homeschool

Homeschool: Day 1 Recap

March 24, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

So. I’m finally getting around to writing about yesterday.

Day 1 of homeschool.

I might throw in highlights from Day 2, too.

It wasn’t bad.

Seriously. We’re all okay.

We did not remotely follow the schedule that I hung from our dining room chandelier.

Mainly because the teachers send their lesson plans the night before and it just doesn’t match.

But they are actually doing school from 8:30 to 3:30.

Of course there are bathroom breaks and lunch and we take a walk every day. Still, I think they are getting more school in at home than they do at school.

They take their time.

We learned pretty quickly that all three of them at the dining table wouldn’t work. I spanked one kid, for the first time ever, when he got into a fist fight with his sister at 9:30 am. Once that was over though, it was the only fight we had to contend with all day.

The eldest, who has always marched to the beat of his own drum, decided to set up school in Bray’s office. He evacuates once Bray comes home from work (he is actually still going to work, so I’m solo during the day). Him working in that space has turned out well. And little bit and the baby work together beautifully in the dining room.

I set up office at the kitchen table. It’s not perfect but it puts me mid point between the two classrooms. I’ve had to mute my line a few times when “moooommmmyyyy, I need you” comes out. For the most part though, I warn them when I go on a call and they respect it.

Mornings, of course, are quieter and better than afternoons. I know this will get old. At this time, they are giving homeschool good marks. Little bit did write a persuasive essay though on why real school is better than homeschool (ha!).

The lesson plans have been packed, which has been good for us, because I don’t have to develop curriculum. Our favorite item on Day 1 were the dot monsters they did for art class – what fun to get to watch them create. Another one of my favorites was watching them do their cursive homework – the assignment was to write three scripture verses in cursive. That’s little bit’s up there in the photos, how timely.

There are a lot of cool supplemental resources I planned to us, virtual tours and space reading and sketching with Mo Williams, that we just haven’t had time for yet because they’re putting in a solid 8 hours.

I cried twice today, even though I made it through Day 1 okay. Once, when the kids did a Zoom call for lunch with all their fourth grade classmates. It was loud and chaotic, but it just made me so sad that they’re missing out on their community.

As you may have picked up over the years, I’m big on community.

Next, each of their teachers called them and talked to them. When little bit was talking to her teacher, she said she’d gotten stuck on math. The precious teacher said well let’s just go through the problem. So they walked through a couple on the phone together and she got it down. I hate that they don’t have their teachers every day (and I know their teachers hate it too).

But you know, we’re doing okay.

We’re doing better than most, actually.

We are safe and healthy. We have food in our house and money in our checking account. I have a job that I can do from home and that keeps me busy. I have three fourth graders instead of three totally different grades and ages and stages.

They’re getting along better than they have in months, maybe years. They jumped into the swimming pool and though it still feels like ice to me it is 85 degrees outside so we have another outlet for their pent up energy.

We start the morning with devotionals which has always been a huge desire for me but I couldn’t do it before because I leave so early from my long work commute. Now, we do it every day. We pray for others. We pray for the world. And we always thank God for how fortunate we are.

Sure it’s chaotic and messy and imperfect, but I’m really present in the now and thankful for this time with my people.

Love to you all. Please drop me a note if we can be praying for you. We’d love to add your requests to our list.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: homeschool

The Night Before Homeschool

March 22, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

It was the night before homeschool,
And all through the house,
All the creatures were stirring,
Including the mouse…

Our new classroom
Our proposed schedule which we’ll probably ignore
Our newly organized kids reading nook

Well, I guess I’ll write.

Tomorrow, we start the experiment called “distance learning” for three Vincent fourth graders, a/k/a The Vincent Homeschool.

We came back from vacation early, more on that in another post, and I was doing well all weekend. Grateful to be home. Grateful to be safe and have a home and food and the ability to work from home – fully aware that so many cannot check off all of those boxes.

Little bit and I cooked and cleaned and set up a homeschool area in the dining room, and we stayed upbeat and cozy. We are introverts after all. The boys took a day away to the socially distant ranch.

Then, we got the plan for our distance learning from our precious teachers. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wrote this on Facebook:
I was good all day. Little bit was a wonder! She organized our bookshelf, Stanley’s shelves, and so much more.
I made two dinners for this week and dug out of work emails.
Then we got the emails from our school teachers with our distance learning plan and it hit me and I started crying. Up until now, we’ve just been back from Spring Break.
But now the reality of how you work full time and implement a 4th grade distance learning plan for weeks on end feels overwhelming and also really sad. Hang in there friends.

I was so sad for my kids, for their fourth grade year to end like this and for them to be away from such dear friends.

I was selfishly sad for me as the idea of juggling a really intense work load, constant conference calls, and teaching my kids all this material seemed like more than I could actually do.

I was sad for all the teachers, and for the parents who have to be at their jobs, and for the seniors, and really just for all the people.

I absolutely see so much good in this. It’s like we all DESPERATELY wanted to slow down but we could not do it no matter how hard we tried. There were all these books being published about being present and saying no and being still and stepping back from all the things. Well, now we have no choice. We’re eating family dinners and taking family walks and coming up with baking plans and movie nights. Just us.

We have been forced to SLOW DOWN.

And we needed that.

We, the world, needed that.

But oh my this is hard.

I had so many working momma friends text or IM me in response to my post. How they are working a thousand hours because of this crisis and have all these different grades of school kids in their house and HOW IN THE HEAVENS is it doable. This was all smack dab in the middle of Spring Break season when everyone thought they’d get a little time off or away and that rug just got pulled out.

I’ve also read a thousand posts from people who are going about this totally different ways. Wonderful and fun parents who say everything from let your kids be bored or let your kids watch t.v. or follow this super detailed and super educational supplemental schedule or give your kids emotional support.

I love them all. I agree with them all.

How our homeschool of fourth grade triplets will look will be radically different from all of them and incorporate a little bit of all of them. I’ll look different from the parents who are teachers and the parents who are physicists. From the parents who are CEOs and the parents who are nurses. From the parents who have lost their jobs and the parents who are required to go to theirs as an essential service.

We’ll have weird hours because I have a lot of conference calls.

We’ll be patient and lose our temper. We’ll have funny moments and total unmitigated frustration. We’ll eat yummy healthy meals and we’ll eat goldfish for lunch at some point, I’m sure.

So on this night before, I am sad. And a little bit hopeful. And we’re all just praying for a cure. We’re praying for our friends and our teachers and our neighbors.

I love that one of the things that seems to have come out of all this is a lot less judgment and a lot more kindness and tolerance. I’m a huge fan of that.

You can be whoever you want to be and your kids can too, and we’re going to teach them that we’re all in this together. The world. We’re in it together. They are home just like the school children are in China and in Germany and in South Africa.

Good luck friends. Godspeed.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: coronavirus, homeschool

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