Holick Elementary

Never did I ever think I would be teaching 1st and 3rd grades from home while keeping a toddler alive and happy when I went to school to be a teacher but that's where we landed this spring and it was by far one of the hardest things I have ever done.  Lots of tears and screaming but we figured out our new normal, took it day by day and got through it.  I learned so much about my kids as learners throughout the process and in some ways, I think they both benefited from some additional one on one instruction.  It was just SO hard to give that to them with Mairin awake so Eric and I woke up each morning with them and worked for an hour before we pulled Mairin out of bed and then held our breath that the rest of the day would run as smoothly as possible.

Each of the kids' teachers provided enough work that they were finished with it most days by lunch time (unless they had an online meeting with their teacher in the afternoon).  We navigated through multiple learning websites, worksheets, and did way more troubleshooting than I would have liked.  Just when I thought that the kids could go off on their own for an activity, I would find that they were cheating by fast forwarding through read aloud or looking off into space instead of concentrating so I would have to reel them back in.  There was a lot of helicopter parenting going on.

I sincerely hope that next school year is not to be completed online but time will tell and we will cross that bridge in the fall.

Quinn's writing has improved SO much since the beginning of the year.  She is working really hard and making great strides.

This is the "ancient banana" that Nolan drew to go along with his vocabulary sentence that he created.  His poor teacher.

We  begged and pleaded with Nolan to read a book during all of this.  He seems interested in this I Survived series and most nights it was like pulling teeth to get him to read but he managed to get through it.  Check out that smile the night he was done!