Home Learning: Episode 17

Summer continues and the garden is producing, finally. There are little yellow squashes on and thin wax beans, still green, even tiny cucumbers. However, we are battling the dreaded black and yellow striped cucumber beetles that are attacking all the squash and cucumber plants. My husband shakes the flowers into a can with dish liquid. I just get in there and squish them, sometimes running them to ground in the dirt before I get the dastardly little things.

We’re continuing with the schedule we came up with for the munchkin a couple weeks ago, and it seems to be working for all of us.

Most of my thoughts regarding home schooling and home learning this week have been focused on the question of whether there will be in person school in the fall and what it will look like. Also, whether we should send her if there is.

I know a lot people who already home school. That isn’t an option for me really at this point. But there are a number of online schools that might be an option for my child. She likes a schedule and is fairly self-motivated. But I also know how much she would miss her best friend. But will her best friend be there?

The debate seems to center around whether there should be in person school, and if there is, should it be regular full-time school with masks and a few other precautions or just a couple days then online the rest of the time?

I have to say the latter sounds better to me, but only if they mean that half the kids go a couple days and the other half of the kids go the other two days. I’m sure that won’t work for everyone.

The governor finally released some guidance in that regard, saying that those regions in phase 4 can reopen as long as infections in the area remain below a certain level. That seems to suggest to me that we will have in person school for the kids in the fall.

Still, there will be a lot of changes to the way that kids go to school. I can’t see any way around them getting used to wearing masks and REALLY keeping their hands to themselves.

Maybe there will be less colds if they are all wearing masks and washing more often?

There’s an instinct to ask the kids what they would want, but I have to agree with one parent who said, you just can’t. It isn’t about what they would prefer but what would be safest for them. This is one for the officials and the parents to decide.