Virtual Learning

Our first week of school is in the books and we are moving on to the second week of school. Our district has opted for the online only learning approach for a bit. We are fine with it. It is what we were given and we will do our best each and every day. Is it always easy? Um NO! Are our kids still learning? Yes! Have their teachers worked tirelessly and endlessly to make this the best experience they can for our kids? ABSOLUTELY! If you don’t personally know any teachers, try to find some and tell them what an awesome job they are doing. Virtual learning is so hard on them. Things are CONSTANTLY changing. They make plans and something happens and they have to change. They are working to make all of their lessons engaging and trying to ensure they work on multiple different types of devices. They stay up late and work on the weekends to make things better and to grade your student’s work. They don’t get to interact with your kids the way they want to. Most people, teachers, students, staff, etc. much prefer seeing each other in person, but these are the times we are currently in so rather than focus only on the negatives, I choose to celebrate the wins and thank the teachers for all their hard work.

So we started our first week with a little bump in the road as my son’s class hadn’t yet been added yet to the learning platform. Now exactly how this Mama wanted to start his first day of school. Also, I’m kind of a planner so to say I was stressed is an understatement. However, it allowed me to focus on getting my daughter started on her learning and get her done. Once she was done she and little red went outside to play. My other son’s class got loaded and we got started! It took him 2 hours to do 2 assignments. It was pure TORTURE to me, but he was learning. It was then time for my daughter to have her first Zoom meeting so my son got a reprieve and went outside to play. First Zoom meeting for my daughter in the books, now it was time for my son’s first Zoom meeting. He did fairly well for the first meeting. Done. His first meeting in the books. Back to his homework. His homework went faster after the Zoom meeting and he completed his other assignments, I think it was about 7, in 2 hours. Then we did lunch and my daughter had her second Zoom meeting. Zoom meeting #2 DONE! The kiddos were done with school by 12:45 and the rest of the afternoon was free time/exercise time! Our next couple of days went off without much of a hitch.

My son was getting the hang of it and doing well! He fidgets A LOT so I purchased some fidget toys for him. They arrived Saturday so we will see if they help at all. On Thursday, my son and I had probably the hardest day of virtual learning. He just didn’t want to do it. It was a lot of “I can’ts and I don’t know how tos.” He also took a picture of my backside and almost uploaded it to his teacher…thankfully I saw it just before he hit submit. He is younger so he didn’t know what he was doing. To him he was just taking a picture of his Mama and sister. I’m not sure if his teacher would have had a laugh if it had been uploaded or mortified. I do know she would never have been the same! I had a dress on but my backside is much larger with this baby in my belly and I was bent over the couch trying to help my daughter get on her Zoom meeting! It was NOT a pretty sight. There were a lot of arguments with my son on getting his work done, but we finally got it done. There was a lot of playtime outside and just having fun. Friday was a nice morning so we moved school outside. Y’all they did AMAZING with school being moved outside. My son was calm. He got all of his assignments (9 I believe) and his Zoom meeting by 11 am! My daughter of course flourished and did her work and her Zoom meetings. We had a picnic lunch with Nan (their Grandmother) and my daughter did her last Zoom meeting. Everyone was happy and it was a good day. All in all it was a good week. As I said, was it perfect? No. Is it how we imagined our school year would start? No. Is it what we have to do? Yes. Are the kids doing better than I thought? YES! I did NOT think my son would ever be able to do online learning, yet here we are with a successful first week in the books!

On Saturday we celebrated an end to the first week of school with donuts for breakfast! I had planned on getting this post completed and uploaded Saturday, but as luck would have it, my kids didn’t sleep well Friday night and then the boys woke up at 5 am. That cut into Mama’s time to get up and work on her blog, but it gave us more time as a family (see! I’m trying to work on being more positive)! I was exhausted and we had a busy full day. We had donuts at the park, went for a short walk at the park, looked for painted rocks (we didn’t find any but that’s okay), visited with Grandpa, got loaded up on snacks and food, had dinner, and went to bed! I was so exhausted Sunday that I spent most of the time trying to recuperate from the early Saturday morning. We just had a lazy Sunday. Today we start another week of virtual learning. I’m sure it will be full of challenges, but we will try to continue to celebrate and focus on the wins!

I know virtual learning is not for every kiddo and it isn’t for every parent. If you are doing virtual learning and having struggles, you are not alone. I would encourage you to try to find the little things to celebrate. I’m not saying it will make it perfect or better, but maybe it will help a little. I’m trying to make changes to find the positives to change my attitude and perspectives! Here’s to finding the good even in the bad!

I had some technology issues so now our second week of virtual learning is also in the books! The kids have had their good days and their bad, but I think that is normal as they adjust to getting back into the swing of learning. Again, it’s not perfect, but it is how our kids are learning and I can see them learning and hear them learning. I am thankful that they are able to learn even in the middle of a pandemic. I am thankful that they are still interacting with other students even though it is virtually. I am thankful for their teachers putting in so much work to ensure they are still learning and trying to keep them engaged. The teachers have given grace, now if only this Mama was as good at giving the kids grace when they are just done with learning. Sometimes it is hard. I want them to just get it done, but that’s not always what they need. This past week I let them somewhat lead the learning. If they were tired and needed a break, I let them take a play break. It might only be for 10 minutes, but they were able to get their wiggles out and refocus. We didn’t do anything special to celebrate the end of week two. Part of me wants to celebrate the end of each week to keep them excited about getting the work done, but I think they will be fine without weekly celebrations! We will just make sure the weekends are full of fun and play. Tomorrow starts another week of virtual learning and a new week for me to try to learn to give them more grace!

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