Learning Centers

Who is ready for distance learning with their littles??

I had always hoped to be a stay at home mom but living in California, especially the Bay Area, that was never going to happen. I never thought I would be working from home full-time and having to educate my two kids. Yet that is exactly what happened March 16th.

Since parents weren't given any time to prepare for distance learning, myself included, I think many of us scrambled to put our houses together for work and learning stations. Ours took place in our dining room. We had many family picnics on the living room floor since we didn't have a table to use. As a speech language pathologist, I was responsible for providing distance learning to my 56 students. Not an easy feat. I also had to support my two kids' learning which proved to be more challenging. Hello, common core math!!

On July 17th, my district decided to start the school year with distance learning at our Governor's direction. I shifted my focus of converting the garage into a gym to setting up the house for the kids.

Thanks to Target, I found some organizing cubbies and basic supplies to start them off. Yes, the district is going to provide the materials needed but I'm from an era where our parents had to provide our supplies so I still do the same for my kiddos.

We bought the kids desks a few years ago and they have been in their rooms since we bought our house. Serafina used hers a lot in spring for distance learning but Gideon's was used more as storage than anything else. So, I made room in our living room and was able to get his desk in there and hang up our maps we bought a year ago (I love maps)! I will continue to work from the dining room because we don't have an office or extra room for me to work in. Again, we live in the Bay Area - our house is SMALL! Josh likes to call our house a matchbox which makes me think of a "Cricket in Times Square".

When I finished moving his desk, Gideon said he loved his learning center. Serafina originally wanted to keep her desk in her room but now she is reconsidering. We will see how the first week of school goes because they will be in video lessons with their teachers at the same time but Serafina may join the party week 2 if we can all manage to work/learn in the same living space! Fingers crossed our headphones don't allow each other to hear the lessons of one another.