After a two-week holiday, we started school again. Every morning we wake up, dress, have our breakfast and then head to school.
Which is the children’s room for Mia and our dining table for Jakob; she likes her peace and quiet, being left alone to do her work and he needs to be monitored closely and constantly encouraged, so this setup suits everybody best. This homeschooling thingy has its challenges, especially since we have never willingly opted for it or had any real time to prepare for it. However, extreme times call for extreme measures! So here is what we’ve done and has worked well for the time being.
I’ve missed the Friday post because I just couldn’t think of anything newsworthy to add to what I have already written in previous posts. I feel all of what we have done is common sense and nothing anybody else couldn’t think of but then I thought how in stressful times even the most obvious of solution can elude us and that repetition is the key to success, deciding, in the end, to go ahead, anyway. So now you get treated to a blog post on two consecutive days. Yeeey!
As previously mentioned, we thought being on a (loose) schedule would work best for the whole family; it would give the children a vague idea of when school is over for the fun to begin and the adults an exact time frame of when their productivity needs to be at its peak. The schedule is well visible on the dining room wall now, to which new schedules, tasks and options keep being added. It is a safety net to keep us all accountable and to give a structure and purpose to our days. Also, we decided to divide and conquer from the very beginning. So one child is stuck in the living room with us while the other is banished to the children’s room. Now, all went perfectly well with Mia from the very beginning; her brother, though, is another story. He cannot stay quiet for a minute (we’ve timed him!) and has to word everything he’s reading or writing, sing, whisper, talk to himself, or, best of all, comment how not motivated he feels on that particular day. It was cute and funny at the beginning but as hours and days rolled on and people around him tried to actually work and study, things got tense. His work stamina is still not comparable to his sister’s but he’s doing incredibly better now if reminded when the break is on and what comes after he’s finished with all of his work. This means that yes, we have regular, albeit short, breaks and easy-going afternoons.
Although a huge fan of lists, I have never been the most organised. Now, however, this is the only way our lives do not collapse in front of our eyes. And remember, organised does not mean tidied up! So we put all school-related items in two (more or less) neat piles where everything is deposed at the end of the day and where he or she goes to, whenever something is needed without the otherwise obligatory ˝Mo-om, where’s my ruler/red crayon/ pencil sharpener/ MILA buch?˝ Well, honey, if it’s not on your pile, I guess it’s lost forever. I also found that organising my time, not just space, keeps everything running smoother. Although we do receive the bi-weekly programme and any handouts necessary, there is no daily program set in advance by the teachers. It is, I suppose, on parents to provide for that. So I try to prepare my day the night before, setting tasks and expectations for myself and each of the children, with the timeframe in which they are expected to be completed. In the morning, I sit down with each child to go through the daily tasks. I feel it eliminates any possibility of misunderstandings.
Then, they eat that frog! Both my children like Math and French but try to avoid German if at all possible, so that is what we start with to get it out of the way as soon as possible. We spring into action at 9am sharp 🤣Ooh, if only! Ideally yes but on the first day back, that 9am was closer to 11am.
Once we deem schoolwork is done for the day, we try to squeeze in a bit more learning by offering technology with school-approved (or Lara-and-Marko-approved) apps. What Mia has recently taken to, is doing her work with a friend over a video call, with video conferences with their teacher in small groups of children starting not long ago, as well; it seems to cheer up the children and give them an opportunity to ask for any necessary explications while working together in a group of peers – the closest thing to past normality they can get at the moment.
In the end, non-school related things count as well. We try to offer them loads of water and snacks, sometimes bribe them with goodies and at times just call it a day and go draw with chalk on the pavement outside. I try not to put too much pressure on myself since I am their mom, not their teacher, the language of instruction is Greek to me and in all honesty, this is no homeschooling but crisis schooling. Progress is slower, nerves are tenser and children’s feelings need to be safeguarded, as well.
But we’re nearing the end. Courage!