Last Updated on March 26, 2020 by Suzy McCullough
Well, here we are. Our first week of isolation done and dusted. It’s been a strange week. I started day one puffy-eyed from a night of crying. I remember feeling so scared and worried about if we were making the right decision.
Facing the prospect of not seeing loved ones, not being able to go somewhere on a day out, no more meals out and no more holidays anytime soon was too much to think about and handle all at once. Mixed with the fear of catching this awful virus. It still is too difficult to deal with but I’m trying to keep a level head so that depression doesn’t take hold of me.
It feels strange to change your life so drastically in such a short space of time. We did it though and so far we are all still getting on which is a bloody miracle. My son was a bit snappy the first two days but these past few days he hasn’t snapped at me once.
Instead, he’s been extra sweet and kind, cuddly and loving and yes we fought very hard to have him and I want to enjoy the world with him but it can wait. I think it’s important to focus on laughing and having fun and that will be our motto for the weeks to come.
Our country needs us to stay at home. You may be starting out on the same homeschooling journey as us this week, you may be feeling the emotions I felt a week ago. You’ve got this. We can all do this.
Week 2 – Covid 19 Lockdown #1
Day 8 Friday 20th March
Here we are….. a whole week has gone by. I’m still unsure why we started on day 1 with a full school routine. Yes, it was welcomed by our routine-loving son but it didn’t last long until he was getting grumpy and tired. The past two days have been far more relaxed. While that isn’t always going to be the case it has been nice to spend some fun family time together.
I think it’s essential to go with the flow. If your kids aren’t digging the routine on a particular day then switch it up a bit. Obviously, all kids aren’t the same. There are so many different learning resources out there that we don’t have to worry too much about having things printed out for them, or having workbooks in for them. Today I published a post about our favourite (and mostly FREE) learning resources.
We headed to the beach early on in the day. It was lovely and quiet again but someone let their dog hassle our son which in the current climate annoyed me much more than it normally would. I think we are far more active than normal as usually, our jobs require us to sit down for most of the day. We are also getting out in the garden every day and usually having a kick about.
Today we signed up for the 30-day FREE trial of Reading Eggs and Maths seed. After a couple of ability tests to find his level he was soon loving the activities on the app. They are very informative and lots of fun. I think he prefers maths but I’d like him to give equal time to English as it seems to be helping him to understand words and paragraphs better. Other than that he just did some work in one of his SATS books and spent the rest of the day playing with his lego.
One of the members of staff from his school must have dropped a work pack off for him as it was on our doorstep a day ago. It’s coming out of quarantine tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what’s in it. I’m a bit relieved he didn’t have to face a ‘last day of school’ scenario today as he would have had to put up with my crying! Hats off to you all who went through that today. Especially school leavers.
Day 9 Saturday 21st March
This morning I was able to order a fruit and vegetable box delivered with no contact to our front porch for £20. If you are struggling for food I can recommend researching local Coronavirus Facebook groups. There is a large group already in my town and it’s a great resource for finding people who are delivering food parcels. It felt so good to have some fruit, veg, bread and even eggs. We are going to take some of it around to my Mother-in-law’s house tomorrow as well.
Today has been a strange day. We knew today wasn’t the day to visit the beach but what happened to my town today was frightening. Apparently, people turned up in their thousands and the streets were bustling with people not keeping a 2-metre distance from each other. Seaside towns across the country made the news today with unprecedented levels of visitors. I don’t get it. We need to keep everyone safe so why are people even driving for a day out? I don’t class that as essential travel.
Our son has started picking up his iPad without checking with us first if it’s OK. But it is OK for now as he is only using it to play on his learning apps. Maths Seed, which is part of Reading Eggs, is definitely his favourite so far.
We spent some time in the garden today but there was a very cold wind blowing. Most of the day was spent chilling again and I got him to help me cut up fruit for a fruit salad.
Day 10 Sunday 22nd March
Mother’s Day! Well, that was a bit different. My son had a homemade card for me when I went in to get him up in the morning. He was lying in bed with it. He’s such a sweetheart, although apparently, I can’t call him that anymore as he’s not a sweet! In the morning we tried a Cosmic Yoga kids session on YouTube which I would recommend for some exercise. It wasn’t particularly relaxing though.
We had a very chilled-out day with a morning of trying to work out how to play Minecraft. Seriously how can a game for 7+ be so difficult to work out? Did they purposefully make it so difficult that people just wander around aimlessly wasting hours of their life?
Anyway, we didn’t get particularly far with that so we chilled for a bit and then we pretended we were going to the cinema and settled down to watch Hugo. It’s a good film, but quite intense for a 6-year-old. We popped some groceries around to the mother-in-law and face timed my Mum. It all just felt so surreal.
Day 11 Monday 23rd March
Back to schooling today. We started the day with a wake-up and shake-up video thanks to GoNoodle on YouTube. We didn’t join in with Joe Wick’s PE session. I haven’t quite figured him out yet if you get my drift.
‘Lessons’ then started with an English workbook followed by some maths from school. Our son puts a lot of pressure on himself and gets easily upset if he feels he can’t do something. I’m sure he’s not like this at school. I think maybe I need to leave him at the table and walk away for a few minutes.
Maybe it’s the pressure of me being there, but he always seems to want my help. Yet gets annoyed when I do help. I changed the activity a few times to see if that helped his mood which it did in the end.
We have decided to learn about different countries. Although he made the list and his first choice was Africa, which is of course a continent with 54 countries! I printed a few related learning resources from Twinkl and we played some African music through Alexa.
He loves using Google to find out things. Honestly, I don’t know what we’d do without technology. He spent half an hour today using Google Maps to find out how long it takes by car to go to and from different places.
We had said we’d go for a walk on the beach tomorrow and if there’s no one about it we’d do a bit of fishing. But it looks like I’ll have to break the news to him that it will just be a walk and no more.
Boris addressed the nation and we are now told to stay home as much as possible and to only go out if we need to go to work although we should avoid that, visit shops to buy essentials only, go out for exercise just once a day and help those in need. (To add – we didn’t go to the beach in the end and we are going to be staying away for some time now)
Day 12 – 14th Tuesday 24th – Thursday 26th March
I’m not entirely sure where the past few days have gone. Half the time it feels like time has stood still and then I’m surprised when I’m reminded that today is now Thursday. I’ve been a bit slack with my diary for the past few days. I just haven’t felt very motivated or have ended up distracted by something else.
Just like last week we started the week relatively well with learning at home. We fell into a routine of 3 GoNoodle wake-up and shake-up-type videos on YouTube. This was then followed up with around 45 minutes of letters and sounds, snack time and 45 minutes of maths exercises (we’ve been concentrating on timetables).
After this, we’ve been learning a little French each day thanks to Duolingo. I’ve then sat with him up until lunchtime while he goes on Reading Eggs or Mathseed.
Reading Eggs is getting a bit too similar now in the sense that there’s not much variety, which is a shame. If anything it’s quite hard and even I’m struggling to get everything right.
The weather has been a lot nicer these past few days so we’ve spent a good couple of hours out in the garden after lunch. I’m feeling a bit lazy with what we are doing at home this week. But equally, I’m trying not to feel bad about what we have done. We are trying! We haven’t been out for a walk since the UK was told to pretty much stay at home. We are getting plenty of exercise at home though. But we are going to miss the beach!
We’ve seen a few more tears again this week which just isn’t like him. He’s not getting anywhere near as much sleep as normal with the mornings being so light now. I’m hoping once the clocks go forward he might start sleeping better again.
But equally concerns about coronavirus could be the reason. We are trying to make everything as relaxed and easy for him as possible but we don’t always seem to manage that. Hopefully, we will all find our mojo after a weekend focusing on chilling out.
Stay safe everyone.
