78 months

Since school was delayed a week, B came back with us to spend some time at our house, we had been to his house so much that he kept asking to come to ours, poor guy needed a change of scenery for a week.  I caught him and C playing babies and "house" multiple times while he was with us, C is so overly protective of her two Cabbage Patch babies that if she let him play with them you know they were getting along and having a good time playing together. The kids did lots of swimming in our pool and scootering through the park. The liked to go on an adventure to look for animals, we saw bunnies, armadillos, birds, turtles but the day we saw an orange snake sliver across the path in front of us they all screamed and hightailed it out of the nature trail! Needless to say they wouldn't go back in the "forest" and stayed on the sidewalk! We did an online art lesson, that B took home and hung up in his "virtual classroom". Aunt Boo, Uncle M and A came up Friday after work to pick him up and spend the weekend with us. It was A's first time to our house that she remembers and she loved playing with the girls toys, she especially loved C's double stroller and I don't think she walked anywhere in the house the entire time she was there without it! We swam, rode scooters (she keeps up with the big kids) and introduced them to the best donuts in town!  It was a quick but great two days with them and was great having B with us for the week, in times like this I'm glad the kids have still gotten to spend some good quality time together. Goodbye summer!

Someone lost her second tooth right before the start of first grade. Unlike last time where daddy attempted to pull it out day after day, this one popped out much easier. Her other tooth even started growing in before this one fell out. She isn't a fan of wiggly teeth and leaves them alone, so I'm thinking they are coming out when they are supposed to and not prematurely, maybe she won't have gaps in her mouth for as long as her sister has! She is definitely looking older minus her teeth, before we know it she will be singing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth".

The start of school looked a lot different this year, instead of going to meet the teacher the week before school we went to pick up computers and all of their books and materials. We decided to continue eLearning at home for at least the first nine weeks and would see from there how things looked for sending them back into the classroom. While we've all been with each other 24/7 since March we've managed to somewhat keep our sanity! We joined forces and brought another family into our "quarenteam" which allowed the girls to learn alongside a friend who was going into 3rd grade with J.  Once we knew what to expect school wise were able to sit and plan schedules for the girls, the big girls alternated houses daily and then on Friday afternoons all three of the girls would alternate houses for some "fun" time after lunch. While C had her own schedule and work to do this would allow her to least have PE, recess and lunchtime with the bigger girls on the days they would be at our house and the days they weren't she would have mommy all to herself. I felt a little bad she didn't have a friend to work with but this kid is so independent that I didn't want to bring in another first grader that I would have to micromanage while this one was on auto pilot!

The first day of school was at our house, we started with a good breakfast and the girls got dressed up in dresses that had been hanging in their closet with nowhere to wear them too! We took the obligatory first day of school pictures and were ready by 8am. They got to play Animal Crossing (we scored a Switch on one of our trips to Miami, we've entered the video game world) until it was time for school to officially start. Just before 9am our other student and co-facilitator showed up and we were ready to start our day, after we took some more pictures! The morning started with learning how to navigate through their new teachers folders, going over expectations and what would be required for their daily work and making sure they could log into the different sites they would be using. C (while her normal school space would be in the playroom at the desk) worked alongside the big kids the first day at the dining room table. We had a full family lunch, Chick-fil-A as a treat for the first day and after lunch they did their independent reading and she worked with the big kids on their science lesson. The day flew by and by 2:00pm everyone was done for the day. We spent time at the end of the day looking ahead to the rest of the lessons for the week and tweaking our daily schedule before calling day one done! It was a day of no tears, no arguing and everyone was happy!

C picked up right where she left off back in May, showing her sign of independence towards eLearning right from the start. She was excited that she got to work from the desk in the playroom and that she had some "privacy" to do her work.  eLearning started off with two classes in 1st grade, C was assigned a teacher that she would have her live calls with and get graded by but both of the teachers essentially taught the kids, they split up the work, one focuses mainly on math and science (C's teacher) and the other focuses on language arts and writing. Our school really put time and thought into the eLearning platform and made it easy on us parents with not having the kids be on live with their class all day long! C breezed through her work the first week, the days the big girls were at the house we stuck to a schedule, the other couple of days I let her do her own thing and dictate how she wanted to school for the day. When our planned scheduled called for school from 9am-3pm, that was hard to follow when it was just her at home and she was breezing through her work.

By the end of the second week the teachers were tweaking their lesson styles and putting out a weekly checklist for the kids to follow along with to keep track of their work and what needed to be turned into be graded. C watched many videos a day, but most of the actual work she did was in her books and with paper and pencil. She had a discussion post or two a day to do on the computer and am glad the younger grade teachers realized the importance of pencil and paper versus keyboards, it was more work on me as I was constantly taking pictures and uploading work but it was better for her.  We stuck to our fun Friday afternoons and the girls got to paint killer whales and then made meatballs with BH's mom, then we all got together than night for family dinner and a swim. While this is not the ideal situation and I would rather they be in the classroom, we were making it work and most importantly keeping them happy and excited to be learning at home!

Here are the pictures from the month.