School Updates
Someday our kids are going to be all grown up and telling their own children about the year the schools shut down because of some crazy virus that was spreading and killing people. What a crazy time we are living through! Already a lot of parents are getting a new great respect (on top of hopefully one they already had) for their kids teachers and school staff. As we learn to be teachers at home, and work hard to keep our kids on track and from slipping behind.
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I am very grateful to my children's teachers who have done an excellent job of staying in contact, reaching out to the parents, as well as the kids, to make sure everyone is doing ok and is able to remotely learn from home.
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As of almost three weeks ago schools in Colorado shut down. Kids were put on extended spring breaks. This was amended a couple weeks ago to go through mid April. However over the past week they have worked diligently to get all kids set up with the technology at home to go to remote learning. As time passes it becomes more and more unlikely kids will return to school at all for the remainder of the school year.
Remote Learning Set up
Over the past several days Denver Public Schools as well as the majority of the other public school systems in Colorado, worked quickly to make sure all kids had the technology needed at home to remotely learn. Kids from K-12 were loaned out Chromebooks. it's amazing to think how many of these they had to have on hand to get them out to all the kids. Families that did not have internet were loaned out mobile hot spots and free internet.
All families have been given resources for free internet at home if needed as well to make sure every child is able to learn from home. Remote learning is in complete effect starting April 7th however over the past week the teachers have been sending out assignments for the kids and testing the system. The kids have google class rooms, and many different online apps and accounts that they use for learning. Teachers have sent home work books the kids will also be using from home. Teachers have been emailing their students to stay connected, and Athena's teacher has been making phone calls to her kids to stay connected with them. One of Athena's first assignments was to make a picture that represented how she felt about her tiger crew (thats what her class calls themselves, the tiger crew) She drew two pictures to be submitted to the group, then the kids also get to see what their friends have been drawing and submitting as well. One of Athena's pictures was all the kids happy to be in class, and the second was all the kids sad they can't go to school. As more kids submit their pictures its sad to see how many are doing the same pictures as Athena, happy to be with friends and sad to be away from school.
*** Athena's homework the other day was to go for a nature walk and create some nature art. All the kids had fun creating art out of things they found in nature. Kira explains how she made hers.
School Resources
I can't express enough how great of a job i feel the schools out here are doing trying to take care of our kids. Besides meeting the need to make sure kids have the technology, schools also continue to try and meet the needs of the kids with food and care giving. Daily schools are doing drive up breakfast's and drive up lunches for all kids between1-18 years old. I've received info on schools that have opened themselves to daycare situations for parents who do not have anyone to watch their kids through this, i've also received information on schools with free health clinics for kids from families with no insurance.
Specials - Music*Library*Gym*Art*Stem
One of the things i've really enjoyed about denver Public Schools is how much time the kids get doing their specials. (Music, library, art, gym, and STEM) It seems they get more time dedicated to this daily/weekly than any other schools the kids have been enrolled in. I have received communications from the kids Specials teachers as well. Kira has a site (i still need to get her set up on) for Ukulele lessons (she just so happens to have one) from her music teacher. The librarian has sent info on how to sign up for a new app for unlimited book downloads until we get out the other side of this thing, for all the kids. I've also had at home Gym ideas sent home, with information that videos will be coming as well for the kids. Their STEM Teacher has been sending different resources as well. It's nice to see that even the Specials teachers are all in, and trying to help connect with the kids stuck at home.
Additional Parent Resources Online
We have a lot of resources coming in from the schools, but we have been doing a lot of activities and school work with the kids even before the schools got it together.
Currently the kids Do their homework from the schools with their chromebooks, but they also have to do school work from mom and dad as well. I have found some pretty nice websites for printing out worksheets and activities online. Here are some of the sites we are using-
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WorkSheetFun.com , This site has tons, and tons of worksheets. They are all free to print out, and they are broken down by grade and subject. They also have pages you can print that are more for fun. Being stuck at home for Easter this year, i have printed out a lot of easter arts/crafts activities for the kids through this site.
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Education.com is another site i found that i was able to print a lot of worksheets off of. I liked their science pages and pages about emotions. It was a nice variety when a lot of pages are all math and literacy. However this site will limited you at some point. I think i printed out about 20 different pages before it wanted me to upgrade. I may in the future but we will see.
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GreatSchools.org was another site with a lot of variety. The Pages seemed to be pretty top quality, but must like Education.com they will limited you at a certain point, however it is on a day by day basis. So you can print out more than enough work for your child to do each day.
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Covid 19 School Update End of May
Here we are about two months since schools in Denver and all of Colorado closed to in person learning. It has been an adjustment. Starting back at the beginning of April the schools officially went to remote learning. Since then the kids as well as us, have had to learn how to navigate this new school world. Athena, Donovan, and Kira all have remote classrooms. Kira has class meetings every Friday with all of her classmates. The rest of the week is ran through a google classroom with assignments and learning she mostly navigates on her own. They have been learning about the solar system and she has been super engaged, continuing research of her own outside of her classwork and teaching her younger siblings.
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Donovan has class meetings every Monday. He also has two class meetings each day with his Special Ed. Teachers to help with reading and math. So 2-3 google meet, meetings per day. Plus class work via SeeSaw.
Quite honestly Donovan seems to have the biggest class load of all the kids right now. Even if you took away his Special Ed Teachers. His teachers have done a good job of keeping the kids engaged. They dropped of game boards and activities for all the kids so they can play things like Bingo, and tic tac toe etc. via the google meets.
Athena has class meetings on both Tuesdays and Thursdays. She also gets a lot of classwork via SeaSaw. Her teacher also calls the kids personally to do zoom check ins. She records story time videos that the kids watch, and does an excellent job of keeping the kids engaged with activities they do at home and then send videos and pictures in that all the classmates can see.
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Donovan was scheduled for Summer school, however summer school has gone to remote learning this year. We are still in the process of making a decision as to whether or not he will be doing that, or if we will teach him ourselves this summer. He has a hard time staying engaged with the remote learning for extended periods of time, and would not know his summer school teachers or classmates prior to starting.
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We have received communication in regards to this next school year, from Denver Public Schools. There is a lot of planning still happening but at this point kids are expected to return to school in August but as an in school, remote learning hybrid. In an effort to lesson the amount of kids in the school at one time, and to potentially spread
kids out in classrooms. Kids would only go to school a few days a week, and then login to do class remotely on the other days. Though it would be nice for kids to go back to school normal, this seems like a nice compromise. The kids would still see friends, and be able to do specials, but wouldn't be so crowded.
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Whatever the future of the kids school looks like, we will continue to support our kids fully. I am saddened by stories of parents just throwing their hands up and not working through the remote learning with their kids. This is a critical time for our children, and how dedicated we are as parents will directly reflect in the success or lack there of, in our children. For this reason education will always be a priority in this family.