Well, we're officially back to school!
Kind of? Haha.
Carrington started first grade virtually yesterday, and Hadley started Pre-K from home (aka mom is the teacher). You all already know about the difficult decision making process we went through when trying to figure out what to do for school this year, and I'm sure many of you are in the same boat.
I'm happy to report that so far, so good! Carrington's schedule will be M/T live with her teacher (a first grade teacher who is teaching only virtual -- so C sees the other kids on the screen who are also learning virtually, which I think works well!) from 9am-1pm, W live online instruction from 9-2:30ish, and Th/F she will have assignments and pre-recorded lessons from her teacher that we can do at our pace in the morning with a live hour from 2:15-3:15pm. Phew! It's a lot to keep track of, but I'm happy with her schedule and really happy with how they've handled it so far. The teacher gives them plenty of wiggle breaks and even a little "recess." Her teacher is wonderful! Very warm and engaging. And two of her best pals from her kindergarten class are in her class (there are 9 in total on Google Meet), plus another girl she knows from Girl Scouts. Fingers crossed, but I am happily surprised with how smoothly its gone so far. Maybe my expectations were just really low, because it is 2020 after all. ;)
Hadley will be doing Pre-K from home this year. I am by no means a teacher but I figured the lessons she'd be learning in preschool are basic enough that I'd like to try to tackle some of it from home instead of just entirely skipping it this year. Her big sister will be learning from home, so why not? So far we've kept it really simple and, again, it's gone surprisingly smoothly. We are starting with the letter A and numbers 0 and 1, working on appropriately-leveled workbooks on things like tracing, etc., practicing cutting/pasting, and writing her name. Because she's young for her "year," we may very well take another year next year before kindergarten and do a transitional kindergarten program if we feel she needs it -- we'll see!
What does your school look like this year? If you have any tips for virtual learning or good lessons/ideas for preschoolers, I'm all ears. Hope the year is off to a happy and healthy start!