This kind of visceral response doesn't happen every day thankfully. Sometimes it's Bryce our youngest who reacts this way. Sometimes it's our oldest Beatrice. School has been out now for a few weeks, but the summer schoolwork continues. And for the most part, they dive in and do it and have a little fun along the way.
I can't say I don't blame them. At least, sometimes. I mean, they still have plenty of free time to play every day, however restricted due to safety concerns and coronavirus. When my wife Amy and I grew up, there seemed to be a lot more summertime freedom for us. No electronics or video games, just hot summer days and nights, maybe swimming in a pool, lake or ocean if we were lucky, maybe a snow cone or an ice cream along the way. Running around or riding our bikes with our friends from dawn to dusk.
I remember going to summer school, at least until Proposition 13 was passed in 1978, and that ended the fun funded summer learning way back when. I also remember going to bible summer day camp way back then, but that went south the day I was scared to death to ask to go to the bathroom and ended up peeing my pants while attempting to glue together an Adam and Eve felt project.
So many mixed summer memories from my childhood. Not all bad, but still, compared to some of what we experienced, this pandemic summer life for our girls is pretty safe and boring. Amen to that.
Even though our summer vacation plans went awry the middle of March when the lockdowns started, we're still fortunate to have employment, food on the table and a roof over our heads; we're doing okay. Either way, the summer schoolwork we continue for our girls isn't anything new. We've been doing that the past few years, at home and on any vacation we take. We just want the girls to keep up on some basics, especially Bea, who needs and has benefited from more one-on-one time with us.
Plus, there's our P.E. (physical education) time outside at least once day, going to a park, riding our bikes, going for walks, adopting tadpoles and releasing frogs, going to the beach to boogie board, and other fun physical activities. And now this includes social distancing playdates with some of their friends, or as much distance as kids understand, which isn't much. Wash your hands!
That's been emotionally and psychologically important, seeing and playing with their friends when they can. Both girls play Minecraft as well with some mutual friends, and as far as I'm concerned, that's their D&D of my youth, building realms and adventuring across them. Super duper cool.
Because America gets such a poor grade overall in mitigating the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), and too many people won't wear their masks in public and social distance, and because I have a somewhat compromised respiratory system, the kinds of travel we're willing to do is limited right now. We're so grateful of the past travel we've been able to do with the girls, and there will be future travel, but it still sucks where the world is at today. We've also thought about in-person summer day camps for the girls, some that have actually opened up, but the risks are just too high with the recent spikes in coronavirus cases.
The summer agreement we have with our children then, which we negotiated with them in order to make them a part of this ongoing homeschool mandate, to have them take ownership of their "fun" learning, is that they have to do at least one hour of work each day during the week. Twenty minutes each (give or take) of reading, writing and math. This also includes science and art and other fun learning projects like math puzzles, making slime, gardening, painting, construction and more. It also includes putting together projects that have been sitting in our closet for years like a fun planetarium that maps the stars in a dark room, or playing cool logic games like Labyrinth, which Amy actually found in someone's free yard giveaway. Plus, there are tons of online learning activities we'll continue to explore.
Once the summer is over, Amy and I and millions of other parents will most likely need to continue homeschooling our kids through distance learning, balancing our lives and livelihoods. Whatever does happen next, the morning work sets up the day for play, and we wouldn't want it any other way.
Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:
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