We also have “may do” and “must do”. I make DD1 do everything. She works extremely quickly and still firmly believes that I will let her have electronics. We have set a rule that there are no electronics until 2pm unless used for school. Which has somehow been translated into “if I finish quickly and do a crap job, I will get my iPad at 10:30am”. I welcome finishing early and, say, playing basketball, riding bikes, going for a walk... but push for electronics means more social studies.
So, until she figures out that her system is not working, she will continue to do allllll the work.
Our school district is a little ahead of the curve since they started giving Chromebooks to all students in grades 3-12 about 4 years ago. The schools have been online since March 16th, by doing Tues, Thurs for two weeks and then going full time on April 2. We have to fill out a virtual attendance form every day by 10am. DD starts her work around 8am. Everything is through Google classroom. We go through her assignments and list them in her planner first. Then she is off and running. The assignments are pretty similar to what she was getting in class. There are also band, music, and gym assignments, which aren't too bad. She works next to me in the family room while I work so the boys don't disturb her. When she is done (usually around 2 or 3pm depending on how distracted she is), we go back through Google classroom to make sure she submits everything. Her homeroom teacher has done some zoom meetings (about once a week). DS1 does not have a Chromebook, so his teacher emails a packet every week. There is a checklist of work to do every day. DH handles that since it is more hands on. It usually takes about 1.5 hrs. DS1's work also includes specials, like art, gym, tech, library, and music. They are very basic and use minimal materials. At the end of the week, DH signs the checklist, takes a picture of it, and sends it to the teacher.
As far as I know, DD's assignments are being graded and will be used for her 4th 9 weeks grade. DS1's work is optional, so I'm not sure how their final grades will be done. I think their final grades will be based only on the first 3 9-week periods.
I'm pretty pleased with the amount of planning and the communication in our school district. Our superintendent likes to know all the info that he can before he sends communications to the district. As a result, our district sends info a little bit later than the districts around us. The transition to online learning has been relatively smooth. I know the teachers in all buildings have been in numerous meetings to figure this all out. It probably helps that the elementary school principal did his PhD dissertation on learning with technology and has done numerous talks throughout the country on this. The district is also providing counseling services for students, additional parent teacher meetings (esp for IEP students), and free lunches to any child in the district.
For those of you with elementary school kids who are receiving a lot of work - are any of you and your husbands both still working a lot/normal hours, or do you all have a parent who isn’t working/work has slowed down/doesn’t have to be done during normal working hours?
I just have no idea how people can help their kids get so much work done when both parents need to work and have meetings like normal all day (never mind having to take care of two other kids - including a toddler - as well)?
I love your restriction about screen time mae0111, but there’s no way we could get our work done without allowing morning screen time. I don’t know if I’m interested in advice or commiseration here - just not sure how people are doing this 🙁
sdlaura, I'm not working full time. DH is working like 70+ hours a week, up from 60+ before this all started. He works a lot with data centers, which are obviously really important right now with the majority of the country working from home.
If I was working full time, the TV or iPads would be on all the time. No doubt. Right now, I can get away with working a few hours a day.
I honestly have no idea how you're doing any of this. If I was still at my old job, I would honestly be in the midst of a very serious breakdown right now. You're doing what you can. Just keep doing what you can. Your kids will be fine. And honestly, if getting my kids outside wasn't such a fight and they were happy doing it, I'd send them out to play all day long and toss the school work in the trash. But all they want are screens.
Post by covergirl82 on Apr 15, 2020 8:22:34 GMT -5
We started online learning March 16, but each teacher was doing their own thing until today. Today common lessons were posted for each grade, with a video lesson done by one of the district teachers. There are supposed to be 3 math, 3 ELA, and 3 reading assignments per week, plus reading, and 1-2 lessons per week from specials (art, music, PE). I haven't looked at ELA yet for DD, but there was a video math lesson that the kids could watch before doing the worksheet.
DD (3rd grade) struggles with math, so I'm guessing she'll be doing school work for at least 2 hours a day, while DS (4th grade) will probably get his done in 1-1.5 hours. IMO, 2-2.5 hours a day for upper elementary feels about right. We'll be having DD do extra math because she needs the extra practice.
Just based on this first day, DH and I will spend time each morning reviewing the day's lessons with each kid and reviewing their completed assignments. DH also just spent 30 minutes walking DD through her math assignment today, so I assume one of us will be taking time each day to help them.
Teachers are supposed to have "office hours" to help their students, which I plan to tell my kids to utilize.
ETA: I just blocked 8-9 am on my calendar each morning for assignment review/help. At least my employer is understanding/flexible and encouraged employees to take care of family first.
For those of you with elementary school kids who are receiving a lot of work - are any of you and your husbands both still working a lot/normal hours, or do you all have a parent who isn’t working/work has slowed down/doesn’t have to be done during normal working hours?
I just have no idea how people can help their kids get so much work done when both parents need to work and have meetings like normal all day (never mind having to take care of two other kids - including a toddler - as well)?
I love your restriction about screen time mae0111, but there’s no way we could get our work done without allowing morning screen time. I don’t know if I’m interested in advice or commiseration here - just not sure how people are doing this 🙁
DH is still working full time. I am working hours all over the place in terms of when and how many, but they are not equaling full time. DD was getting about an hour of work. DS had 3 hours of work a day.
For those of you with elementary school kids who are receiving a lot of work - are any of you and your husbands both still working a lot/normal hours, or do you all have a parent who isn’t working/work has slowed down/doesn’t have to be done during normal working hours?
I just have no idea how people can help their kids get so much work done when both parents need to work and have meetings like normal all day (never mind having to take care of two other kids - including a toddler - as well)?
I love your restriction about screen time mae0111 , but there’s no way we could get our work done without allowing morning screen time. I don’t know if I’m interested in advice or commiseration here - just not sure how people are doing this 🙁
We are both working alot of hours, which is why I always sound like I am teetering on the brink of sanity. Dh is working 50+ hour weeks as essential staff (non-medical), while I am still logging 40+ while trying to manage the kids and e-learning. Which is what kills me, I am forever saying things like "No, it is your quiet work time because I need to work too." and "Yes, you and your sibling can play outside, I will take my laptop," and the best "please do not sit on my head during a video call". If I just had to do e-learning it would be okay, but all of the other work stuff that I have to do, plus the endless calls is what is killing me.
sdlaura, When I have the kids, it's just me here with the two of them. So 3-4 days per week, my own work load is a total disaster because I'm managing the two of them alone and working full time. I get 1-2 days a week where they are at their dad's, so I end up working crazy extra hours on those days to try and play catch up.
When I do have them, I end up getting up around 5:30 so that I can work from 6-8 AM before they get out of bed. Then I get them up, and until around 1 PM, I'm half-assing all my own work. Finally when they're done school work, I can throw on a movie and get a couple hours of uninterrupted work in while they watch that. I break for dinner and evening routine so we have some semblance of "quality" time together and not just stressed aggravation. Then I usually hop back online for another couple hours in the evening.
Thankfully, my meetings are 90% with internal colleagues, so if my kids are yelling or show up while I'm on a video call, no one seems to care. We're all just in sheer survival mode right now. My boss (the CEO) knows I'm a single mom and barely keeping my shit together, so he's told me to just make it work however I need to. For a bit I was cashing in a few hours of PTO a week because I felt guilty for not hitting my full 40 hours. But I think I'm going to stop doing that.
I will have the kids for like 26 of the next 30 days straight, so I'm sure in a month, I will be tearing my hair out and ugly crying on a regular basis trying to juggle it all.
erinshelley21 I’m surprised that you want more work! My DD has 2-3 hours and I want less/all of it to be optional. We can’t keep up.
DS needs busy work. He is not great at thinking of ways to entertain himself and he doesn't take to my suggestions well.
I'm just going to have to be more strict about the work he is doing. I'll admit I was very hands off last week since most of it is app based, but the work that requires him to do something is messy, so we are going to work on that.
DH is a SAHD and he was struggling to get 2 kids (5th grade and K) to do schoolwork plus entertain DS2. I am still working full-time plus teaching online one night a week. Luckily, I only have 2 classes left and the students will be doing final presentations for them. But then my co-instructor and I will have to grade 7 term papers. Our university gave us two weeks to turn in final grades instead of the normal one week.
So that is why DD is working next to me. On some days, it goes pretty smoothly and she is done with work just after lunch. On other days, usually the days where she has a writing assignment, it takes up until dinner time for her to get done. I have to constantly remind her to focus on those days.
I don't have a ton of phone calls every day (usually 1 - 2). I find that if I set goals for the day, it makes the work more manageable. Since I am WFH and no longer have to deal with an hour commute, I find myself willing to stay online until I complete my tasks (as opposed to rushing home, eating dinner with the family, and then logging back on).
There are some pretty rough days too. Last week, we had some bad storms roll through which knocked out internet for the day. My boss understood and I ended up making up the hours on Saturday. He said not to worry about taking PTO to make up for lost hours due to whatever is going on at home. We do have a big software release deadline and we are a small company. If I don't complete my work, the project comes to a grinding halt. So as long as we are meeting our internal deadlines, our big boss man is happy.
sdlaura My husband is working more now than he did before and he is gone.
But There’s no way I could do this (homeschool the two and entertain the little one) if my job kept the same amount of workload. (I’m in public schools but not a classroom teacher.) I have some direct services I provide in the afternoons, working w teachers a lot over emails and meetings, and a lot of team meetings at the school and central office level....but no where close to the workload I had while at work.
I still really empathize with you moms who are trying to do this with the full workload. My daughter is in 3rd grade and needs help every.single.step of the way. Not just the academic content but navigating google classrooms, checking her newly discovered email, responding to posts, clicking video links, we just had to use the “scribble” feature to shade one rectangle to find the area of two rectangles together, and when just can’t do all the steps. My 5th grade son is doing things all on his own now that we taught him how to print etc. We scan his work and upload though.
Edit: I just bought 3 new leapfrog videos from amazon for the little one.
We are both still working more than full time (50-70 hours a week for both of us) which is why I don’t mind that the district is doing such a poor job and the expectations are so low. And why we bribe ds to do it autonomously.
We have been doing online learning for last month. School sent home tablet last day before school closed. Its real time which is good, they used seesaw all year, ar renaissance, math facts and a few other platforms before covid.. Son is in 2nd grade. Teacher provides learning goals each week on whats being covered etc. We have about 4 weeks left of school.
For those of you with elementary school kids who are receiving a lot of work - are any of you and your husbands both still working a lot/normal hours, or do you all have a parent who isn’t working/work has slowed down/doesn’t have to be done during normal working hours?
I just have no idea how people can help their kids get so much work done when both parents need to work and have meetings like normal all day (never mind having to take care of two other kids - including a toddler - as well)?
I love your restriction about screen time mae0111, but there’s no way we could get our work done without allowing morning screen time. I don’t know if I’m interested in advice or commiseration here - just not sure how people are doing this 🙁
My job is weird and I’m able to go to my lab on Fridays and do all my lab work then and the rest of the week I don’t really have much to do. I don’t have meetings (never have). DH was gearing up for retirement right as this all started so his actual work stuff is pretty minimal right now. Technically we are both working full time, but in reality neither of us is. My boss is also the most understanding person on the planet when it comes to kid stuff and stressful life stuff which helps a ton right now.
I will add... my kids can never be in to distance learning on the same day. Every day, at least one of them is grumpy about it and doesn't want to do the work.
Today DD1 is in a great mood... and still not doing a good job on her work. Everything takes 5 minutes because that's all she wants to spend. It's sloppy and she's doing the bare minimum.
DD2 has been whining for 2 days. It suuuuucks. I typically have a ton of patience with her but today I just... don't.
Well after reading all your responses and talking to some local parents it just seems like our district is extremely behind the curve.
DH is working full time still installing and fixing garage doors. Some days he doesn't do much but his boss basically has them with steady work til the end of May with new construction and commercial stuff.
DD is coming to work with me every day. I'm still working in office and WFH doesn't work well for us for anything more than a 1 off day so no plans to switch to WFH. Today is the 26th day DD has come to work with me since this started. I've found a good balance on how much mom school to give her each day vs letting her have free time. Yesterday she finished her work in like 90 minutes and it made for a very long day and I snapped at her more than once. I know that I'm extremely lucky that she can work independently for the most part and for being an only she can entertain herself really well. She ready 1786 minutes last week for her read at home minutes and that was DD reading the 3rd & 4th Harry Potter books.
186momx, if you're looking for more reading material, my DD1 was really into Harry Potter (read each book at least 4-5 times, if not more). She recently got into the Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer. She really loves them - maybe your DD will too.
I think a lot of my issue is that most of my meetings are not internal - they're with like 15 rich old man board members of giant pension funds and foundations. So there's no ability to toggle back and forth between meeting and kids - I have to be locked in my home office for hours (which is also why I have time to post on social media, while stuck at my desk . Also everyday is different in terms of meeting schedules for both DH and me, so there's no ability to create a schedule and stick to it for the kids. We have childcare help for 3-4 hours in the mornings, but it's from my parents and DS2's closed daycare provider, so all of those people are over 60 (so not technology-savvy) and also trying to watch 3 kids including a toddler boy, so I can't ask them to help too much. My work is generally pretty family-friendly, but the client meetings are non-negotiable.
This morning I was able to sit with DD from 7:30-8:30 and we were able to knock out a good amount of the must-dos, so that was good. DS1 (kindergarten) often has trouble falling asleep, so last night we did some of his work from 8-9 pm. And I think mommyatty was right that this is going to get easier as the days/weeks go on. divanerd I wish we only had 4 weeks of school left. Instead we have 10!
Post by traveltheworld on Apr 15, 2020 12:09:17 GMT -5
sdlaura, I totally feel you on the 10+ rich old man board members on meetings that last FOREVER thing. Luckily I usually don't have to say anything, so I put my headset on and try to help DS/DD along while on mute, or I shop on-line . DH is unemployed at the moment so he is able to help a lot more, but he's still job searching and doing some work for the charity board that he is on so I try to give him a few hours a day to do his work too.
We've definitely let go of our earlier expectation of keeping the kids organized and on a routine.
We have been very fortunate that DH and I are able to switch off. New business in my world (commercial lending) is basically on pause right now. So I'm managing the existing portfolio, and prepping applications for PPP loans. A few days a week, I'm slammed, other days I have a lot more flexibility. I also have bowed out of anything that I think will be too much. I was/am worried about what that means long-term, but did get a call from our CEO that was very generous.
We don't do a schedule for the week. I log into my calendar and DH's calendar the night before and work up a schedule. Some days, it's a free for all for the kids (I legitimately locked them in the back yard for 2 hours last week since they kept nagging us while we were on calls. They cried for a bit, then it stopped and they had fun.)
sdlaura, we only have DD1 receiving real school work since DD2 is in 4K and we are both still working full time from home. It's really f'ing hard. We don't have any child care and it's exhausting juggling all the balls any given hour. We are trying to tag team and coordinate our conference calls but it isn't perfect. When it's each of our turns with the kids, we try to get them to do school work but it requires constant monitoring because they're so young. They're getting electronics more than I would like but it's a pandemic so we are doing whatever it takes to get through.
Our district is behind on virtual learning for K-2 because they didn't have chrome books for those grades. They finally came up with a half baked "schedule" and teacher zoom meetings last week and we're supposed to get workbooks next week. I took a look at the lessons they sent out last week and decided it wasn't going to work for our family. I'm opting out and we are only doing 20 minutes of writing, 20 minutes of reading and then her math workbook or Dreambox. We don't have the bandwidth for anything more than that.
I talked to my SIL about DD1 falling behind (she's a second grade teacher) and she said they're all going to be behind. As long as she's writing and reading, it will be fine. That was enough for me to hear and go with it.
I will say if I take time for myself each day, I feel 1000 times better. Even if it's only taking a shower by myself and washing my hair.
So my kids are supposed to go back on May 4th. I have felt that they weren’t going back this year pretty much since they extended the initial cancellation.
All of a sudden, all teachers are sending recurring Zoom meetings through the last day of school.
LOL mae0111, I JUST texted my mom (school principal in our state) and said "Do I need to watch the governor's press conference today or tomorrow for school details?" We'll see if she tells me. I know she knows and he has said he'll announce this week. I'd imagine if my state is announcing this week, yours must be too.
LOL mae0111, I JUST texted my mom (school principal in our state) and said "Do I need to watch the governor's press conference today or tomorrow for school details?" We'll see if she tells me. I know she knows and he has said he'll announce this week. I'd imagine if my state is announcing this week, yours must be too.
Yeah, I don’t think any schools are opening this year. If we’re ahead of a lot of other states in California in terms of when we started social distancing, and our schools don’t get our until they end of June and they’ve already cancelled them for the rest of the year, I don’t think states that started later and get out earlier are going back. I know companies are worried about liability if they re-open and people get sick and/or die, and I’m sure schools are, too.
Yeah, I don’t think any schools are opening this year. If we’re ahead of a lot of other states in California in terms of when we started social distancing, and our schools don’t get our until they end of June and they’ve already cancelled them for the rest of the year, I don’t think states that started later and get out earlier are going back. I know companies are worried about liability if they re-open and people get sick and/or die, and I’m sure schools are, too.
This should be true. But a lot of red states are determined to reopen and are bluntly saying that people dying is better than the economy continuing to tank. So who knows. I bet Texas reopens camps and day cares by June. We are hoping they keep schools closed through the end of the year. And the headmaster of our school just donated all our sanitizers, Clorox wipes, and Lysol spray to our police department, so I’m assuming he believes we aren’t coming back. Not sure if he thinks this means summer is cancelled too.
PA made the decision to close for the rest of the school year last week. Some of the local universities have already decided to stay online through the summer sessions.