Adventures in Home Learning: Episode 13

The school year is done. It is officially summer vacation here. There are no more assignments I can give her from school to keep her brain moving away from the black hole that is videos on Youtube.

Yikes!

She does find other things to do, but they don't seem to take her long. She has already completed four hours of a coding program for kids. 

She's smart, but sometimes she reminds me she is still a kid. 

This past week we had the belated, “if you cut your doll’s hair it will not grow back and it will not look as nice” lesson. (I wasn’t in the house so I’m not sure who did the cutting and who needed the lesson.)

However, we were able to turn it into the teachable moment that says, “However, it will not look quite as bad after the initial upset has worn off and you’ve drunk some water and relaxed.”

I told my daughter to remember this, that it applies to haircuts that don’t turn out quite the way we pictured and a multitude of other things in life that seem quite awful in the moment. Have a cry, drink some water, relax, give it a little time, and things may not seem quite so bad.

I did get the child to do some sorting of her toys yesterday and she actually threw away a package one came in, of her own volition! I was amazed. That rarely happens.

I was very happy when she put a bag of “supplies” for artwork on her desk. I like that she is thinking in that direction. She has been looking up different characters almost daily and doing a drawing of her own choosing.

I gave her a little assignment yesterday, to think about a card for Father’s Day, since that is coming up this weekend. She decided she wants to make him a picture. I’m waiting to see what that is.

I’ve started weeding in the garden daily and she has been helping a little. At other times, she has worked on picking rocks for my husband and carrying water for me.

I’m also engaging her in helping with meals, whether it’s cutting some things up for me, mixing, or fetching from the fridge. I figure any break in screen time is good.

As I started searching for summer schedules for tweens, I found articles recommending searching for rec programs and camps. That’s not something my husband and I are comfortable with right now. In fact, a LOT of the summer things on lists around the Internet are kind of out the window right now.

My husband and I have been talking about creating a schedule for her. Here is one that I found online. https://teentake30.com/f/covid-19-weekday-schedule-for-teens-and-tweens I intend to see how we can adapt it for ourselves, with some input from the munchkin.

I’ve started back to work in the office a couple days a week myself so that means I’m not there all the time, and not really available a lot of the other times.

This is going to be tricky.

Is it time to go back to school yet?