Technology Deployment

I spent the morning at school helping with the technology deployment. We were distributing chromebooks to families that needed them for distance learning. We had over 100 families that had requested technology, but by noon less than half had actually come to pick them up. I’m not sure how the afternoon went.

The sky as I left to go to school 💕

When I got home a little after noon, Monkey Boy told me he was already done with all his class work, but Squirrel Girl hadn’t even finished her Reading/Writing assignments. I have to wonder if he ACTUALLY got everything done or if he skipped some of the directions. I didn’t bother checking.

After lunch was Specials time, and being a “Wellness Wednesday” I found a yoga video for them to do.

Back to work at 2:00 and by 2:30 SG wasn’t much farther along and she was in tears because it was taking so long. I hate that she compares herself to her brother. They approach work with very different attitudes. She is a perfectionist and he just does what he needs to do to move on to fun. Honestly, I don’t know what is taking her so long. According to the estimates of time it shows on the Learning Plan, they should only need to be working a total of 140 minutes. Yet after a supposed 3.5 hours of work she wasn’t even half done. I asked her if she was getting distracted, but she said she wasn’t. I’m not sure what to do to speed her up. At 2:30, I told her she needed to be done for the day because it was just too upsetting.

She asked me to read my favorite childhood book to her, but I had a virtual faculty meeting to attend. I could see her disappointment. It killed me. After the meeting, I walked away Friday my computer to spend time with family. The kids and I went outside while Nathan started getting things ready to grill fajitas.

Squirrel Girl decided to pull weeds while Monkey Boy and I tossed the basketball back and forth.

We also rescued a worm that SG must have dug up while weeding!

We got warm and moved back inside where I read the first 5 chapters of Julie Andrews Edward’s Mandy. It is one of the few books that I read over and over again as a kid and it still makes me cry as an adult. I’ve read the book to Squirrel Girl before, but she said she doesn’t remember the story, just that we read it while she was home sick several years ago.

Dinner was delicious and we followed that with fresh baked cookies and watching Masked Singer and LEGO Masters as a family.

Today my takeaway is that we need to find balance. SG can’t spend 8 hours of the day working on schoolwork. She needs to find a more efficient way of doing her assignments, but I’ve been too busy with my work to help her figure it out. I’m hoping to find at least a little time to work on that with her before next week.

By that same token, MB needs to realize he doesn’t get to spend 5 hours on video games or YouTube just because his work didn’t take all day. I think I need to make a list of things he has to do before he can ask for non-school electronics.

We are going to get through this. That much I know. And hopefully we will learn some valuable skills along the way. 🙏