I’m channelling all the feels through random memes these days. Feel free to comment and share your own.
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
Benjamin Franklin
Let’s face it everyone, in the midst of all this COVID-19 business, we’re juggling. Here’s a list of links to help you keep all those balls in the air.
New York Times Coronavirus Case Tracking
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
U.S. State Department Outbreak & Travel Advisories
Khan Academy – Provides daily schedules & age-appropriate guided curriculum
Virtual Field Trips – A great list of resources curated by Freedom Homeschooling
Scholastic Learn at Home – Project based resource incorporating books, videos, and interactive learning
Have Fun Teaching – Relief packs (geared towards teachers, but aren’t we all learning to be teachers this week) by grade level for Preschool through 4th grade
Free Educational Resources – Kid Activities blog has put together a pretty thorough list of resources that are free while we school-in-place
Talking to Kids/Q&A – Texas A&M Department of Educational Psychology
Helping Kids Cope with Changes – National Association of School Psychologists
What Kids Need to Know Podcast – CBS Morning
Disney Parks Virtual Rides – Romper compiled a list of links to some of our faves to enjoy while the parks are closed
Playbill – Watch some of your favorite Broadway shows from home
Check out Instagram and Facebook Live feeds for some great live-from-home entertainment. My faves like Harry Connick, Jr. (Hunker Down with Harry) and Jimmy Fallon are regularly posting content.
The New York Public Library‘s e-reader app provides thousands of materials for free.
Banner image 📷 credit: Markus Spiske from Pexels
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Albert Einstein
Spending Spring Break at home in the midst of a social distancing voluntary quarantine provides this mom/professor/realist an opportunity to make some lemonade.
It’s officially spring break, and I’m supposed to be on a beach somewhere. Instead I’m quarantined with my children and husband, removed from the comfort of our schedule with no vacation in sight. Our schools have closed. Our movie theaters have closed. And we haven’t a square to spare.
We’re in uncharted territory facing a real-life public health crisis. People seem more anxious now than ever, yet I’m trying to maintain calm at home. Without it, we’re doomed to constant fighting and pre-pubescent attitude.
Sure, the kids are psyched at the notion that they won’t return to school for weeks. Their souls will be crushed when I convene ‘mom school’ this time next week. Until then, we’re playing board games, building Lego, limiting screen time (the struggle is real!), and trying to make lemonade.
At work, I’m being asked to migrate my courses online DURING spring break. Unlike most other universities in this situation, my employer has not offered us an additional buffer week to ramp up to the e-learning platform. Luckily, I’m familiar with the tools available to us, but the adaptation isn’t as easy as it seems. But again, we’re making lemonade. This time it’s with a squeeze of Zoom and a dash of Canvas. What’s more, as you can imagine, college students are nervous about everything – grades, exams, lecture formats, cancelling graduation, everything. And rightfully so.
None of us knows when we’ll return to campus or school or Nordstrom or Starbucks. It’s a pandemic, for crying out loud. It’s time for jazz hand greetings, social distancing, surgical hand washing, and an out-and-out lifestyle paradigm shift. We’re in this together. We can do this. We WILL do this.
2020 has served us a freaking bushel of lemons so far (part of the reason I haven’t posted since November), but we’re furiously stomping them to a pulp. We’re only a few months in and already thinking about putting up our Christmas trees to finish this crazy year. And we’re making lemonade – sweet, delicious, effervescent, slightly tart lemonade.
Over these next few weeks or (God help us) months, follow me into uncharted territory whilst, ironically, rarely leaving the house. Along the way, I’ll write and post useful links to try to help cope with madness as our worlds collide. Cross your fingers that the kids stay quiet as I live stream lectures from home…
I hope you’ll check back and share information you find interesting, helpful, or funny. I look forward to hearing from you!
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin
A poem celebrating the new year and the joy some parents relish in sending their kids back to school.
Twas the night before school starts,
When all through the house,
Not a kid was whining or begging for a snack.
It's time to resume schedules: bedtime was back.
The backpacks were hung on their hooks by the door.
We all know this is the only night they’re not spread on the floor.
Children were sleeping while the sun is still out.
With visions of recess swirling about.
Mama with her wine glass and Dad with his bourbon,
Just settling down to binge watch “Jane the Virgin”.
When feelings of guilt start to creep in,
Should we be this giddy that school starts tomorrow?
Pretending the end of summer is, oh, such a burden!
With siblings fighting, screen time overload, and battles for showers,
Who wouldn’t want another couple of hundred hours?
With grocery store visits accompanied by beggars,
Trying hard not to be the mom who is craggier.
Finding contraband bags of Cheetos in the cart;
And every conversation punctuated with a fart.
Living this dream we call summer...
I won’t even think the early alarm is a bummer.
It hits you like a ton of red schoolhouse bricks:
Freedom starts tomorrow – you do some high kicks.
You feel a cool breeze, there’s a pep in your step --
The unmistakable sensation of days soaked in ease.
The chores of the school year, despite being near
Are nothing compared to a kazoo in your ear:
Now! Snack Duty, Carpool, Lunchboxes, and Meetings;
On! Uniforms, On! Practice, On! Lost Shoes, and Required Reading.
From the middle of August through the last day of May!
All the parents complaining, “Why are things always this way?”
Hardly remembering the trudge of the year’s hottest months.
Forgetting the bickering and pool towels on the floor.
Kids not remembering the reminders before:
To pick up after yourself is a fairly simple chore.
Now the ungrateful boredom will come to an end.
On busses and sidewalks, our kids we will send
To shiny new classrooms filled with delight.
Hoping they’ll be worn out enough to sleep well at night.
Camp schedules replaced by a million activities.
Someone else, my apologies, dealing with proclivities.
For the asking of questions and the sometimes sassy
Hoping the kids get a (metaphorical) kick in the assy.
Some kids skipping down the hallway.
Some moping all day.
Regardless school's starting --
Tomorrow’s the day!
Whether high school or sixth grade or tiny kindergarten,
We will meet our new teacher; there'll be newness and fear.
Despite this, happy parents (like me) beg your pardon
Because empty backseats and peaceful shopping are near.
So decorate your chalkboards and charge up your cameras.
These moments are fleeting, there aren’t many beginnings.
About thirteen or fourteen if we play our cards right.
Because you know come college, they’ve all taken flight.
I’m choosing joy and elation instead of deep sorrow.
But I understand the sadness of school starting tomorrow.
Summer is over; we all made it through.
Now get to bed early because, in the morning, there's lots to do.
All this chaos, will I miss it? (Maybe) No way!
Am I tired of the school year? Ask me in May.
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