March 2020 Happenings (after shelter in place)

The second half of the month started off with us trying to figure out how to continue working with both schools and daycare shut down. We had planned to keep the four primos together and rotate the Grandmas, C, and myself watching them. After a couple of days the entire state of California was ordered to shelter in place and we decided that with the Grandmas vulnerability to the virus it would be best not to have them watch the kids. Luckily HMC is considered an essential business as part of the critical food supply chain and was allowed to continue to operate. Unfortunately keeping up a full time job while working and schooling from home is absolutely horrible, most especially when your company is making decisions on how to deal with a global pandemic. My schedule looked something like this most days 5:00-8:00 am work, 8:00-1:00 help the boys with school while trying to work on ASAP items as needed, 1:00-2:30 work while the boys had iPad/tv time, 2:30-4:00 get out of the house, ride bikes, walk, play soccer, 4:00-5:00 work on ASAP work items as needed, 5:00-7:30 make dinner, eat, normal evening routine with the boys, 7:30-10:00 work. At one point we were asked to write a personal account of the impact of COVID19 on our farming operation and I wrote a blog about it on behalf of HMC, it's posted here if you would like to read it.

Despite all of the struggles, tears, and tantrums we were able to fit in some fun too. Not packing lunches and having to get everyone out the door in morning, doctors allowing for more appointments to be done virtually, more local companies willing to deliver directly to your home, and being able to spend more time with the boys were all really nice positives. Reed's teacher has been amazing. She hit the ground running the Monday after school was cancelled and has never looked back. Google Classroom, Zoom, Padlet, and Loom are part of almost each of Reed's days. She's managed to keep them moving forward in reading, math, and language arts with classroom instruction, apps, and learning websites. They've finished units on Insects, the Human Digestive System, and Immigration. They've done research projects, google slide presentations, and written multiple page original narratives. She's divided weekly assignments into Must Dos and May Dos to ease the burden on parents and has included a ton of fun content including virtual fieldtrips, dance videos, science experiments, craft projects, and YouTube drawing videos. Kieran's teacher has kept her Kindergartners engaged with weekly Zoom meetings that include show and tell, read alongs, drawings, and lots of sight word work. The boys' music teacher even got in on Zoom and has been giving them weekly keyboard lessons - it is amazing to see what she's able to teach even when she isn't physically next to them to correct fingering and has to rely on an app to hear notes and keys. All in all this has been an eye opening experience with lots of pluses and minuses!