Jack

 

Dear Mom,

Please consider letting me out (of my room). Today mistakes were made. I promise to be good. 

With Care, Jack Fisk

Amelia

 Today Amelia showed me a kindness. I had a rough day so she decided that she would give me a spa treatment. She cut up some cucumbers, she kept calling them pickles, for me to put on my eyes. She also cut extra slices for a snack. I laid down on my bed with "pickle" slices on my eyes. She then rubbed my feet and hands with lotion. After she fed me some cucumber slices and sips of water she read to me from the Owl Dairies. It was just what I needed. I feel so loved that she would do something extra special for me. She is such a sweet girl.

Jack

 Tonight Jack told me tomorrow is going to be the best day ever! Here are his reasons:

1. No school

2. He gets to go to the Middleton Fall Festival with friends

3. He gets screen time, plus an extra 40 minutes - When he talks with his teacher during the "office hours" he gets an extra 20 minutes of screen time with a max of two teachers a week. He saved up his extra screen time for Friday.

*** I added the extra 20 minutes of screen time bonus to help entice Jack to talk with his teachers one on one. Because of the utter joke the school year is, Jack has had a hard time connecting to school, teachers and classmates. I thought at least he could get some individual time with the teachers to help make a better connection. Of course I let both of his core teachers know the plan so they have been super great about checking in with Jack academically while also exchanging some general chitchat. 

Jack

This week I let the boys watch a scary movie for the first time. I found a list of PG13 scary movies that were ok for tweens, meaning not too much gore, cussing and sex. It has several levels of scary so we picked a "not so scary" movie to start. We watched the Poltergeist (1982 version). The special effects were 80's bad and the scary stuff takes a while to get going but its still a good one. There is one jump scare in the movie that got Jack pretty bad. After the movie was over Jacob said he didn't really like scary movies, he liked comedies better. Jack thought it was great and couldn't shut up about the scary parts and how he felt at each moment of the movie.  

All was good, everyone went to bed; of course Jack had every light on in his room. Later in the night Jack said he had a nightmare about a tree eating him (a part in the movie) so he came into our room to sleep on the floor. He tried to pull it off as he was sleeping with Skipper but the wooden cross I found by his pillow gave him away. Lol With a big sheepish grin and twinkle in his eye, he admitted he was scared. Of course, he has since tried to convince that he thinks being scared by scary movies is fun and wants to watch another one! I said maybe, but he has several "levels" to go in our list of scary movies before he even gets to the "pro" level. Not sure what movie to have him watch next.

Made it thru September

 So September 1st was the first day of school and I can confidently say it was the hardest month ever. I congratulate myself for getting thru the month. Part of my strategy was taking a two week sub job that pushed the kids into independence. It worked for Amelia very well. She can now get her work done by herself. Now I don't know the quality of that work but hey I guess that is her teacher's problem. Jack needs another week or two of getting into the routine of daily tasks plus assignments. He is working on turning in quality 6th grade work. Jacob was good from the start. He just needs a reminder to breath at the beginning of each week because of the new load of assignments assigned to him. 

This distance learning is just the worst. Kids don't have the developed self-discipline or motivation or developed skills to do this. Everyone I talk says the same thing about this being so hard and stressful. I just wonder what the kids will remember about this time when they are older. I know for sure that I am so grateful to Umma and Upppa; spending time with them has really been a Godsent for the mental and emotional health of the kids. 

Amelia

 Well Amelia's school year is going like crap (that's the nice version of what I think its going). Her computer has worked one day out of the last 5. She literally lays on the ground and throws a fit about school work, her computer or anything related to school. She was nervous about starting the year off at a new school with new kids so throw that on top and you have a childhood trauma event that we are reliving every day there is school. I am trying really really hard to help her thru this. Last spring she threw fits after she had to do work from school. Anything new or challenging made her scream and cry. She is now doing the same thing. For every assignment she completes she cries for at least 15 minutes, either before, during, after or a combination of all three. At home learning is a joke for her.  She needs in person interaction. She needs other kids to play with. She needs a place where other adults can help her. She needs a place where she can be helpful to others. 

2020-2021 School Year

First day of school 2020-2021. Let's see... the boys have sat thru the same power point presentation in all of their classes. Basically going over how to click on a Zoom link to get them to class (note they clicked on a Zoom link already to get them to the class to watch the presentation on how to click on a Zoom link.) or how to email a teacher. Jack got to help his technology teacher out by showing how to toggle between a video and his screen. 

Amelia hates her Zoom class meetings each day. She hates sitting there listening to a tiny head on the screen talk with her. Today her computer did not work right so we was like 15 minutes late to the class meeting. She then was so upset she had to use the our personnel computer she wouldn't even sit at the computer. Now she is laying on her floor crying because she doesn't want to complete the work on the computer. 

Online school sucks. It is not good. It is a joke to think this is ok for kids at all.