Is It October 12th Yet?

Yesterday one of the first grade teachers was absent. Since they don’t schedule substitues, the teacher gave us a list of assignments to complete. There was a few activities for math, a reading and writing activity, word study activity, plus their special and their intervention services. I have to say, it was the best day we’ve had BY FAR. There were smiles, hugs, cuddles, and no whining. No tantrums. No heartbreaking looks from my babies. See, there is one child who is most against virtual learning. Learning in general, but virtual learning is especially tortuous for him. Brody has said all along that he’d rather be homeschooled by me than do virtual learning. Funny, because he gave me the most problems back in the spring. But he was so happy yesterday and finished all his work by 10am, and that was taking our time and taking breaks. He did an amazing job and we all had a great day.

This morning when he woke up, Brody asked me if his teacher was absent again. I told him that she’d be back, so he’d go back to virtual learning. He was so upset and asked if I could just teach him like we did yesterday. Unfortunately, I don’t have the assignments and that’s just not how it works I told him. The school says we have to do it this way. Needless to say, today has been rough. Brody has been pouting, refusing to work, throwing things, turning off his sound, and just generally not listening to his teacher today. I gave him a bit of leeway on his behavior chart (I can post about that later or tomorrow) but I ended up having to move the clothespin to “Make Better Choices” because he just kept carrying on and then started to be disrespectful towards me.

Still, it breaks my heart. I keep telling him, “I know, buddy. I know this is hard but you can do it. I had fun yesterday too, but this is how we are learning today.” And I hate doing that.

Our district is moving to hybrid on October 12th, which can’t come soon enough. Seeing my kids over the moon happy at their sports practices, interacting in person with their teammates, is all the proof I need that they need to be around their friends. They need to be in class, and I really hope, though I’m not terribly optimistic, that we will get to full-time in school this school year. Anything less is just not enough. And if that’s the case, I am seriously considering pulling them and teaching them on my own until we do get back full time. Trying to give it a chance, but bottom line is this is too much screen time and it just plain isn’t working.