A lot of friends have said something along the lines of… this must be an easy transition for you since you are already homeschooling. Let me tell you, NOT THE SAME. This is crisis schooling! We are not living in our normal state by any means. During normal home school life, I leave the house every day. Given my son is in kindergarten we do 2-3 hours of work and then leave the house! We’d go for walks, go to museums, see the world and learn from it basically. Under quarantine this is not possible and I feel like the head space is very different.
Current coping strategies not limited to but include:
I make movement a part of our life most days. The kids jump on our quarantine trampoline while mom does some form of exercise . I just need it to feel sane. I have been doing Pop Sugar or the Sweat App. The kids do PE with Joe. I even did a zoom with my buddies last week. It’s lovely not to sweat alone. We are part of a homeschooling community and do zoom calls on a Monday. We cover our classical conversations work in the week and I encourage reading, phonics and math, audio books and reading through out the week.
Baking once a week because all parties can participate. We make banana bread and have become accustomed to listening to this Banana Bread Song before making.
Walking as much as we can. We do a “pick up” order at target and walk to collect it. We walk to the park and play in mud or time my little runner doing laps across the field so that he can beat his running personal record. Some days he’s all game to run and others, he is lazy. On the lazy days we walk the perimeter of the park and climb trees. I found a lovely indoor scavenger hunt as well as outdoor.
We completed the outdoor scavenger within two streets from our home, go figure. Today I bought cones from the spot section at target. A dollar a piece and I got eight of them. I plan to use them to create goal posts for soccer fun as well as for running and movement drills.
On one of our warm days, an at home pool party was a welcome treat. It was so glorious to be in the sunshine! I cleaned our deck furniture and they splashed and played. Chalk on the deck is a win, we draw car tracks and take up hot wheels. We have been planting seeds and watering them too. I love the kids reactions watching them sprout. I wanna soak in the things that I know they will only do while they are little. Trying to remember that we are making memories over here not just surviving.
I am South African and we have been enjoying online safari drives and learning all about animals. It feels as if you are taking a game drive with a ranger the way in which it is filmed. It makes me thoroughly home sick but that buys us about 30 minutes while I can think about the next plan of action. Today we researched how paper is made which came from my son asking.
Easter is not cancelled in our home. We are joining an online services on Friday and Sunday. I am planning on making hot cross buns. I use Jamie Oliver’s recipe every year. My man is a huge fan. I plan to do an indoor/deck egg hunt with clues and maybe even powder created bunny paw prints. I was hoping to find glow sticks and get all crazy with a nighttime egg hunt but that just may not be possible with trying to stay home and not visiting the store.
What are your quarantine coping strategies and how are you doing Easter? I’d love to know.
Amazing idea to make hot cross buns! They are my fave!! Thanks for sharing the recipe