Is everyone in lockdown learning bliss?

[Allusernamestakenbutthis]

If FB is to be believed, mums are managing well with lockdown learning and kids are getting a better education. Well I’m not and I don’t think my DS is either!
My DS is a master of avoidance and frankly doesn’t care. He struggles in some areas and thrives in others so the balanced curriculum his very well meaning teacher is providing is quite time consuming but isn’t doing him much good imho. I would really prefer to just work on his writing ie just getting him to write stories without all the grammar fluff and formal mumbo jumbo in the videos .... but don’t want to offend his teacher or get called out because he hasn’t watched his two minute video on renewable energy, or can’t be bothered to do his self portrait or bake a cake for the baking competition...
Please share your thought on your own experiences!

We have a Computing lesson to do. Technically 9yo DD has. But she doesn't understand any of it. So I get to do it too.

It's on making videos. Funnily enough, we don't have actual film equipment lying around for her to analyse. Her equipment is my phone...
No idea what to do when we get to the editting part of the course...

Hahahahaha . No

No bliss or happiness. Thankfully youngest DC is in yr7 but it would appear I’m the only one who could possibly know the timetable so they’ve missed 2 live lessons already today

DH and I both work for ourselves but obviously his job is far more important than mine so I’m stuck in the cold draughty hallway while he has the dining room with radiator.

Not feeling it today

Cupboard full of treats and sandwich stuff in the fridge has helped a great deal with the constant requests for food... managing a little maths a day but that's it. DD has found a good times table game on her tablet. That's about as good as it's going to get here this week. Better than last week so far.

Today was pretty normal. This is survival nothing more. Wfh full time with 3 children.

Get up, wake up, you can't just log in and go back to sleep.

No a onesie is not appropriate wear for classes, nor is a sleeping bag wrapped you, get dressed - no I don't care if it is what you wore yesterday, as long as it's clean pants, who cares...Hair brushed - not a chance.
Can you please put some clothes on NOW.

Pot Noodles for breakfast (Well at least they had breakfast - improvement on grunts if I'm not hungry).

No no more YouTube, you are meant to be watching that "really interesting" deathly dull oak academy video

Yes of course I can mark that homework whilst I'm in the middle of video call

Can it wait five minutes, papers thrown across desk.

Lunch is not crisps

Wake up you have a class

Wake up you have a class

Have you logged in yet?

Have you logged in yet? I don't want can't face another call from the school.

I gave you your sheets this morning, what do you mean you have lost them already!

Has anyone done their schoolwork, I will check later; whilst I'm rocking in a corner.

Have you logged in, to your class not YouTube. You have a class now, log in please.

Somehow I'm meant to work through all this 🤣🤣🤣🤣. I'm sooo behind I'm going to have to work this evening again......exhausted, broken and reliant on Gin.

Ps no one on my social media feed is enjoying home learning one tiny bit, and I'm currently hiding in the toilet.

@AntonMeyersNo1Fan that sounds utterly cold and miserable.

Glad to hear there has been a slight improvement for some of you. We’ve had no crying today so that’s a nice change.

Mine’s a nightmare. I’m a SAHM mum because of all this and I’m still not managing.

Four year old DD (Reception) is furious and upset that school is closed and just refuses to do any of it. Joy.

My two are miserable.

DS(6) refuses to do anything at all and needs 1:1 adult to bully him into doing a tiny amount of substandard work. He has a full time TA at school and was doing brilliantly. I can't give him 1:1 because I have to work ft. The next month is going to involve a lot of Minecraft or I'll get sacked.

Took the dogs for a walk earlier after attempting some maths with ds6 which resulted in a meltdown after he tells me he doesn’t know odd and even numbers so how can he understand his worksheet about it. We have to walk by the school and dd5’s class were all out playing as we walked by. She was very upset and refused to talk to or go over to them or her teacher. This resulted in an afternoon of refusal to do any work. Had enough today despite the younger two being at nursery and preschool.

to all.

I keep hearing/reading about all these marvellously self sufficient secondary school children - my Y7 is on a reduced timetable now because he just couldn’t cope with back to back live lessons. He’s gone from crying and raging with stress to turning the occasional dreadful piece of work in, which I praise. Everyone I know has diligent, focused children producing reams of work.

Y4 DD is doing well but tired and grouchy today, as am I.

Is it Spring yet?

It's like a living hell. Yr 11 is very good and is logged on by 10 and will work until it's all done. Yr 6 constantly moaning , saying it's too hard and he wants to go on his x box. Reception child needs lots of bribes and and lots of breaks , if I turn my back for 1 second he runs off to play. Trying to get him out of bed and dressed every morning for the live lessons takes more patience than I knew I had. By lunchtime I just want to escape , I can probably just keep going until half term but after that I wont have the strength. Last time was so much easier as we did our own projects which were fun and educational, the weather was lovely so lots of outdoor time and no pressure from the schools.

Placemarking

to everyone struggling...or if its one of those days.

Struggling here under the weight of Yr1 and reception work on screens.

@bellsbuss there is definitely a lot more pressure to do the school stuff this time. Last time we did our own thing, probably more akin to de schooling and some future esports stars were born.

Finally finished my own work at 1am this morning.

Is it too early to pass you all a Gin

@raralalalalaloopit this made me LOL!

"Last time we did our own thing, probably more akin to de schooling and some future esports stars were born."

Can I join the thread please? It's a living nightmare here and I'm crumbling under the pressure. And I only have one 'perfectly normal' (under assessment for autism, possibly ADHD, definitely not 'perfectly normal' when at home) 10 year old DD.

I'm autistic, my workload has doubled, WFH starting at 5 or 6am just to get in a few hours without distraction. Can't cope with the constant competing demands of my job PLUS the expectation that DD will engage fully with the school work for hours a day and pretty much independently at that. Because she copes very well at school (at least on the face of it) nobody's interested in making any allowances for her at home. She 'just needs to get on with it, give lots of positive reinforcement, she'll be fine'. I.e. I'm a shit parent and the reason she isn't engaging is that I'm not making her engage.

Well newsflash, she absolutely will not do anything and the more I try to force the issue the more she freaks out and her skin picking is out of control due to the stress. Last time around she changed overnight, was a happy calm child and the skin picking instantly stopped along with the regular bedwetting. Because the pressure of school had been lifted. This time around the expectations for a 10 year old to work independently are unreal and it's just not fair. 'Just do the work, and post a question on the VLE if you're stuck'. Yeah right. She's never met her teacher before (old teacher left at Christmas, so has a new teacher now) and HOME IS NOT SCHOOL. Classroom, teaching staff, peers? Fine. Bedroom, mother, no other children in sight? Not fine.

Every day I crumble a little more. I can't keep up with my work, she's getting further behind with her work which makes her even less able to engage than usual. And any attempt to explain / reach out to the school is met with a thinly-veiled accusation of poor parenting.

Is it time for wine yet?

Yes, it's been heavenly.

I adore teaching noun phrases so much I must have explained them to my 7 year old 30 times over the last few weeks. I can't get enough of them.

There hasn't been any swearing, threatening or crying from me over the past fortnight. I love the challenge of trying to balance 5 hours of schoolwork, 2 nursery runs, cooking, cleaning and childcare with caring for my injured partner, who is currently unable to walk and being the sole source of company, socialisation and emotional support to my eldest child with an 8 hour working day. Bliss.

Oh, and my dd absolutely did not climb under the table yesterday during a lesson on commuatable number sentences and answer every question with a 'miaow'.

@Chwaraeteg you definitely have it tougher than me and I'm so sorry. But you did make me laugh on a very tricky day, so thank you. :-)

Home learning is going great ....but I've not made a penny this month ( single parent self employed) so its swings and roundabouts really!

Oh, and my dd absolutely did not climb under the table yesterday during a lesson on commuatable number sentences and answer every question with a 'miaow'.

Ds did not do this either during his group session with the learning mentor this afternoon. He also didn't have to leave and then re-join a google classroom meet because he'd managed to change all the chat and written instructions etc to German and didn't know how to change it back to English.

Smarties help. There are 34 in a tube, 17 for today and 17 for tomorrow (17 +17 = 34, there's a number sentence that's not on the curriculum for reception}. Use them in maths and DD can any that are left when we've finished.

I have a yr 6 and a yr 8 and the schools provision are so much better than in lockdown 1. I help only with food and IT help, which is good as I work FT, at home since March. I’ll miss them when they go back to school but they need to, for company of their own age.