Homeschooling going to shit - a support thread

[Brokenchair1]

Schoolmum WhatsApp group rapidly filling with messages about people doing the Joe Wicks live PE, photos of kids sitting at desks dressed and working, mum's joking about how lovely it is to home school.

Meanwhile in the broken household....single mum here, I have a Skype meeting at 1 I need to prep for, DD 7 currently refusing to do anything and keeps sitting on me saying she wants to play. 3 months of this 😭

Anyone else where homeschooling isn't filled with colourful timetables and colour coded snack trays...join here for support and commiseration.

Please give yourselves a break, all of you!
This is day one of a new system, in very worrying times for all of us. If your kids need a few days to get used to it and just chill, that's ok. School work will still be there when they're more settled.

Right now we should all be focusing on doing what we can to just get through each day. For some people that will be routine and their kids will happily adapt to that routine. For others, it will be watching TV/YouTube/games while parents work. Some families won't do a thing for a few days, and that's ok. Others won't do anything for months, which is less ok educationally, but understandable in the circumstances.

I'm a secondary maths teacher. I'm setting work online, but I fully expect some kids to ignore it and I'll need to teach it properly when we get back to school. Some will work hard, and I've had plenty of emails from those kids already. Others won't, and there's not a huge amount I can do about it, as I obviously can't set detentions for incomplete work at the minute (and I wouldn't want to under the circumstances).

Take it easy. If the kids don't want to do any school work, leave them be for now. They'll get on and do it at some point (or not).

Gotta roll into it gently. My DD is at the other end of the spectrum and thinks I should instantly transform into a fully qualified teacher! So needy.

I did have a brilliant idea, which kills 2 birds with 1 stone - I a, getting DD to spend an hour online doing reading and English with her gran. Luckily we have an old spare iPhone so I can hook it up to the WiFi and they chat over FaceTime (just needs an Apple ID not a SIM card).

End result is gran is less bored and lonely, DD gets to talk to someone who isn’t me, and I can focus on something else. I’m trying to find some more lonely relatives who are tech savvy for the same purpose!

I definitely think for the first few weeks there is no point pushing your kids to do school at home. There is months of this ahead of us so plenty of time to acclimatise and get into a new routine.

Well, that’s what I’m telling myself...

It's a shitshow here!!

Just made the mistake of going on FB to see several photos of kids with the heading Day 1 of homeschooling.

Am I to assume I'll see at least 89 more of these posts?

Looking forward to a running commentary of Day 2 of homeschooling tomorrow

Well we started the morning well here with a timeout due to bad behaviour.

Whatsapp mum's group in full flow of recommending which work books are best.

I'm still in bed while DD sulks in her room. Also just started my period.

Day 2 is going to be loooong.

I’ve been up several hours with dd who didn’t sleep, can’t think today is going to be a top learning day!

Don’t forget to mute the class chats if they’re getting you down - we’ve got a chat kicking off about how the kids haven’t been given enough work! Mute!!

Same with Facebook - snooze them!

Day 2 here gone to pot so far.

I'm trying to work ds1 is not impressed and ds2 doing a puzzle. Dh losing the will to live 😭😭😭😂😂

I don't know how much of this I can handle

@racheyg About 87 days 😭😭😭

Don't forget that learning doesn't have to be written and desk based. Make it as active as you can do it feels like playing and so that it's fun. If you need the evidence for school, a photo with a caption should be enough.

Not bad here. Decided that putting them both at the dining table together wasn't a good idea although it looks very instagrammy. So DD1 is at the coffee table and DD2 was lying on my bed. They've managed to get some work done although today it was DD2 moaning and whinging 🙄

I'm doing it one child at a time so that when one is working, the other is having a break. We're doing it half an hour or so at a time. This aft we're going back to the duck pond to look at habitats and looking through my old photographs as part of a history lesson (I swear I'm not that old!) to look at the toys I used to play with. They're currently racing in the garden and that counts as PE! Mine are in y2 and y4.

I'm hating the pressure from schools here in Germany - at 8am all 3 kids wete bird spotting through the window and I was googling to answer questions. We looked at maps of their range we read that a blue tit only weighs 10g and dc1 ran to get a weight from the old fashioned kitchen scales to show dc2 and 3 how little 10g is and they wete amazed. We researched what different birds eat, they talked about making feeders - it could have been a full day project but the schools are sending so much work with dire warnings about falling behind and how work will not be repeated. I had to make them start school work at 9.

At least the secondaries are marking the work - I have to mark dc3's myself which is fine for maths but so difficult for German. He's being assessed for dyslexia and I have to force him to write stories, then correct them and rewrite, then analyse stories in the same genre and rework again with the same stylistic devices. The teacher isn't responding to individual emails but writes group emails to the class saying "I have received some lovely stories but some of you need to put more time into your work and concentrate on x, y and z and some haven't sent anything" I sent her some extra pictures of the structure of the eye dc3 did voluntarily for project but she didn't reply at all. I'm wondering whether she's actually received them.

We've stopped for the day now although will go for a walk in the woods in a few minutes.

Then I have to go to work and do a night shift.

Not doing my own college work at all.

Day 2 coming to an end. Super-competitive WhatsApp group muted. Logged onto DS's online portal to be greeted by a message from his French teacher: "seven boys have not submitted their work yesterday. Please ensure this is done today."
FFS we are just about managing to stay afloat with English, Maths and Science!!! All amongst trying to figure out fucking Google docs.
Cue - older DD, please do the French worksheet for your brother (bribe follows)
Now just finished three Science worksheets of about 30 questions in total - I am so done!!!!!
Also, I never realised just how dumb non-academic my DS is....

Rise what is fuck off in French?
I'd be very tempted.

Ds has done no work at all. None. Zero. Fuck all.

He's eaten 5 twister lollies though. And drove me fucking mad.

And Dh just rang me to say he thinks he's lost his job now. Fantastic.

We've been sort of ok today. Only a couple of strops. DS (10) had a web chat with two of his classmates and they did a maths worksheet together. Not sure how much they right though .

I've re-introduced quiet time. So I've just had a wonderful 45 mins of silence on disturbed by the dog snoring.

I spoke too soon. 😢

Today has been a lot better today as (a) I now realise I HAVE to separate the 4 year old from the 6 and 7 year olds when they are doing their work and (b) 4 year old has discovered Sesame Street and loves it so I let her watch two today whilst I did work with the big two.

Am anxious though as not sure I am navigating the itslearning platform correctly and missing things. Have also muted the WhatsApp groups until evenings as too stressful

We've done a bit of reading today and one work sheet. I see that as a result. DD still quite emotional about the change so I'm going easy on her. She's on the iPad now and I'm on the

Until about 2pm I was Mary freaking Poppins. I was softly spoken even when interrupted 4 billion times while working, I helped re-open google classroom about 100 times when DC "accidentally" shut it down. We had lunch in the garden, we agreed on the afternoon plan...

...after this afternoon I would be amazed if many of you didn't HEAR the volume of my shouting. Sweet fuck, over 2 hours of whining and crying and wriggling and moaning to do 3 bloody maths worksheets. They cried louder when I told them to give up and watch TV so I could work.

Guess I will be doing my own work tonight then. And apparently they want supper now too. Huh.

Rise and danni I think the phrase you're looking for might be 'va t'encouler' if my memory of hours spent giggling over Harrap's French-English Slang Dictionary serves me right.

There was also a hugely entertaining thread on foreign insults and obscenities on here some time ago. I wonder if it was pulled. 😈

Arthur thank you so much - I will be ready with it for tomorrow!
Any chance anyone can translate this useful phrase to Latin too?
I suspect I will need it