First day of school...check!

Our official first day of school was an eLearning day. Not how I would choose, but again, I'm very grateful for our school district's chose path this year. (I may be alone in this.)

The kiddos started the day with big bowls of cocoa pebbles (so healthy) and I started mine with my favorite tea. I've taken to calling it my happy tea (because it contains ashwagandha). 

I want us to have some semblance of normalcy, so maintaining a rhythm, if not a strict schedule, is necessary. We started school around 8am. Everyone was fed, dressed, teeth and hair brushed. I even applied makeup. (What an overachiever!)

We started with reading from Jesus Calling for kids and taking turns praying. Then, we said the pledge of allegiance--I found a little flag leftover from some past Fourth of July. After that, it was time for actual school. I set Ruthie up with her work book and helped Jojo with his Chromebook.

He zoomed through his lessons! We did have a pretty serious hiccup when it came time to write. He had to write a little bit about something he had done this summer. He froze, wouldn't do any of the work, and acted like he couldn't even sound out words. It was pretty frustrating to have this happen so early in the day. It went on long enough that I was getting angry. We went back to his bedroom and I said for, like, the millionth time, that it didn't have to be perfect. When I finally told him that I wouldn't make him erase and re-write any of his work, he perked up. He needed to hear that exact sentiment, I guess! Poor guy was so stressed out about not doing a perfect job, he felt overwhelmed. I totally get that feeling!

After that, it was truly smooth sailing. We have a lot of eLearning ahead of us, so I'll have to remember to tell him that mistakes are totally okay.

For reading time, he read to Ruthie. I don't think he read as much as he was supposed to, as it probably only took him less that five minutes to read Baby Shark, but we can work on that more tomorrow. He's a pretty strong reader, so I'm not too concerned.

After he finished all his lessons, the kids got out the blocks and started playing. They are so creative with those mega blocks! Even though the target age is for toddlers, I feel like my kids' creativity soars when those blocks are out.

I decided to get Happy Meals for lunch to celebrate our first week of school. And also because I didn't feel like making lunch. We stopped by the library before grabbing lunch because our local library is finally open! There was hardly anyone there, so social distancing was no problem. We picked out a ton of books and go to see our favorite children's librarian, so that was such a treat!

After lunch, the kids played some more before Jojo's first Google meet of the year. It was just a quick little check in. And that was it. That was our school day.

It was a really great day. I'm not silly enough to think that all our days will be this smooth, but I'm certainly glad our first one wasn't too rough!

I have a friend who chose virtual learning, and her kid was in a Google meet for almost three hours! I can't imagine expecting a first grader to sit that long. It makes me extra grateful that we chose in-person. Of course, things change. Who knows what our days will look like in the weeks to come? But I'm grateful that today was a good day.