Zaylee and I started school today. We're homeschooling/online learning through k12. And boy was today an adventure!
As the learning coach, I have access to all of Zaylee's courses and assignments. But even though today was the first day of school, nothing was showing up in my daily plan except an Intro to Online Learning that I was supposed to complete. Well, I did the first section, and saw that the rest were scheduled throughout the week, but still no assignments for Zaylee. So I thought that this week would be easy-peasy, and the hardest thing would be finding enough extra stuff for Zaylee to do in order to get in her required school time.
Then I decided to do a bit more of the Intro to Online Learning (thinking I was getting ahead, ha) and realized that I was supposed to have started it a while ago and gotten it completed by today. Each time I completed a section, assignments started popping up for Zaylee to do. So by the time I finished the whole intro (which was just teaching me how to be a learning coach, and how the lessons were supposed to work in each subject) the week was full of assignments and coursework. Zaylee and I had to get started right away!
At this point, it was already 3:00 in the afternoon. As a kindergartener, she's only required to have 2.75 hours of school each day, but I didn't figure in how much time it would take for me to read through the lessons, figure out what I was supposed to do, and prepare to coach Zaylee through each subject. Not only that, but as a not-quite-6-year-old, she needed frequent breaks. It was about 6:45 when we finished all the required work and I was able to successfully mark her attendance for today. She ended up with 3 hours and 5 minutes.
Despite not being at all prepared, the day went pretty well. In Math we reviewed shapes, in Language Arts we read a poem and started a 3-part lesson on Cinderella, in Phonics we learned about /m/ and /t/. Wow, written out like that it doesn't look like much. But anyway, it was actually a lot of fun. Zaylee enjoyed her little lessons, and Thomas made sure that he was involved by coloring in a coloring book while Zaylee did her worksheets, and by participating in the lesson on shapes right along with us. I think he'll make a jolly little classmate for Zaylee.
As soon as we finished dinner this evening though, you can bet I was on the computer preparing for tomorrow's lessons!
