The Seedling + Homeschooling During the Pandemic

Hello, sweet friends. I truly cannot believe that it is the end of May already. I swear it was just a day or two ago when I was looking at the calendar, thinking how could it be the end of April? These days in quarantine have been funny. Time shifts and bends, dragging some moments, flying past others. And this is always the case in life, but this pandemic has changed things so that the idea of time is somehow amplified, skewed, mixed up more than ever.

The things that used to define our days⁠—J. coming and going to work, the morning and afternoon school bells, countdowns until holidays⁠ and vacations—these things have been shuffled away. The days run together like watercolor paint and too much water. There is no definition. Sometimes the mess is beautiful, sometimes it’s gutting. Sometimes I am overcome with joy and gratitude and seized by the beauty all around. And other times, I am suffocating, boxed in, struck to my core with fear over what comes next.

Homeschooling my children has been much the same as life in general. Some days it is beautiful, calm and smooth. Other days, everything is a struggle from start to finish. I am grateful for the woman who I am now, the woman who has learned to “embrace this season of life,” whatever “this season” may mean in a given moment. Over the last decade, I suffered so very much, but in all of that suffering something wonderful emerged, a resilience, a deep knowing that this, too, shall pass. And with that resilience, with that knowing, all things are manageable. Yes, sometimes the old hopelessness creeps in, but far less so now than I ever imagined possible. That is victory.

Now, a few thoughts about homeschooling during this pandemic. Like I said, there are smooth days and struggle days. But the way that I handle the struggle days now is by putting everything away and going for a walk. It’s that simple. I don’t force the issue. By this point into lockdown, 3 months in, I am of the firm belief that I have done enough. I receive daily assignments and recommendations from the kids teachers and I make sure that the core assignments are completed, and my definition of “core” is reading, spelling and mathematics. Everything else that I receive from the school gets done if it gets done.

Aside from the work from their school, I supplement their learning in all sorts of ways. You can read more about that, see our daily schedule and the resources that we use in this post. But, in short, one of my favorite ways to teach them is by choosing a book to focus on each week and then building a little curriculum around it. The work you see in the pictures in this post is based on one of our favorite books, The Seedling that didn’t want to grow. It is such a sweet story with a beautiful message and gorgeous illustrations.

When we do a book study like this, we take our time going through the book and I create exercises to go along with the content. We use flash cards (this set is from The Little Oak Learning), make art, and practice new vocabulary words. I try to choose books that are seasonally appropriate as well that way we can take what we’ve learned and observe the lessons out in the real world on our daily walks and hikes.

One thing that I’ve noticed about the assignments that the school is giving us is that they are all very screen-time intensive. The school has provided all students with computers, but they are mindful of the fact that not all families have access to paper and printers, so most of the work is done on the screens. While this is certainly a critical component of online, distance learning, I also believe that tactile experiences like writing and reading and exploration are deeply important. This is why I have no problem diverging from the recommendations at times and doing our own thing.

This has definitely been an unexpected turn of events, for our family and for the world at large. But here we are, pressing forward despite it all. I hope that you are safe and well. xo