*I am writing about our experiences so we can look back in years to come and remember what it was like.
The entire Covid pandemic experience is definitely the most trying and challenging experience any of us have ever lived through. We had been hearing rumors for weeks that Covid was making it's way to the US. It started in China, but I honestly was very naive and thought we would be able to eradicate it or stop the spread to the U.S. The nightly news kept reporting each night more and more cases. I still don't think we took it too seriously as it wasn't a big problem in Colorado yet.
Joey and I decide last fall that we wanted to take the kids somewhere special for spring break this year. We decided to go to California and also go to Disneyland. We surprised the kids with the trip on Christmas. My parents were going to come along as well. We had everything planned and booked for our trip. We were all so excited. Especially Gracie as we kept telling her she got to celebrate her birthday in California. As our trip got closer and closer, we kept hearing news reports about increasing Covid cases. I was nervous, but I was trying to stay positive and tell myself that the trip would still happen. About a week before we were supposed to go, Disneyland announced that it would be closing for the foreseeable future. Well, that definitely made up our decision for us. We were all pretty devastated to lose our trip, but we soon realized it would just be the first in a string of changes and cancellations during this global pandemic.
The district I work in does a two week spring break. I got out of school a week before the kids. At my school we met as a staff and discussed what things would look like if we had to go to e-learning. I was still optimistic and so hopeful it would not come to this. The following Wednesday, the kids had a normal day of school and were supposed to go two more days before spring break. That evening, it was announced by the district that school would be closed indefinitely. It was such a shock and we were all pretty numb. We had never experienced anything like this before. We were also ordered to stay at home and limit contact with pretty much anyone.
We spent spring break at home trying to find fun ways to entertain the kids (more blog posts to come). The only saving grace through this whole pandemic is that my sister and her family live right next door. We knew immediately that we would be comfortable seeing them. It was just not realistic for us to quarantine ourselves indefinitely with no contact. My sister and I decided to create a learning schedule for the kids. The schools were still scrambling to figure out how e-learning would look. I figured it would be easy for me to do stuff with them at home since I am a teacher and all. Whoa. Not the case at all. I love kids. I love teaching. I do not love teaching my own kids. It was such a struggle to give the all attention at the same time. It was basically a disaster!!!
After a few weeks, their teachers starting posting assignments. I know we were all in emergency mode, but I was very disappointed in the e-learning that was provided. Gracie missed all of the end of her kindergarten year. That is pretty important. I loved her teacher to death, but her assignments almost solely consisted of watching Youtube videos. Dawson's and Ashlyn's teachers were not much better. I will never, ever take normal, in-person learning and teaching again!!! School is not meant to be taught virtually! We will see what the future holds for next school year. I hope and pray dearly that we can return to some level of normalcy.
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| The "schedule" we created for the kids. I don't think we stuck to it for even a day. We set our hopes a little high. I will admit we were in panic mode and creating a schedule and a plan helped to ease our anxiety a bit. |
Our little students ready to learn
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