Week 9, Day 39 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Nearly 40 days of this nonsense. I'd say that's a lot of blogging, but a couple of summers ago I did the 88 days of summer everyday, so that qualifies as crazy.

Today is the LAST day that they are suppose to assign any new work to be done. We got notes from both kiddos gym teachers saying that they hadn't turned in anything this entire time. #momfail #teacherfail Yep, we didn't. I didn't know they were suppose to submit anything. I checked it out the first, maybe the second week, and seen that they had posted things but there were no assignments. So I applauded them for not making something a requirement, because believe you me, the Agozzino's would be FORCED to participate in physical activity, so no need to mandate. Well shoot, I spent a good chunk of today today submitting 6 weeks of submissions telling them what we did for gym.  🙄 Dang good thing I keep these blogs.  I even documented this stuff! #momrebound #teacherpivot

We also continued to work on our writing prompt booklets about the school year. Isaac also got special drop-off from Mrs. Kristoff and Ms. Cady, but he wasn't here when they stopped by sadly. He got a trophy for 'nicest' which is just perfect for Isaac. He really does have a heart of gold.

This afternoon Olivia got a jump start on her 4-H project when she planted her pumpkin seeds. I'm praying they grow or I'll have one really sad little cloverbud. We didn't plant them until today because it's Ohio, and we've had to look like hillbilly heaven the last week, covering up our flowers and veggies since it's still frosting at night. UGH.  If the weatherman doesn't lie, we should be done with that for awhile now, so we planted the pumpkin seeds.

Week 9, Day 38 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Wowzers, today was jammed packed with FUN. Today was field day.  Remember that fun day where you get to play outside all afternoon.  Yep, except ours was filled with a bike ride with maw and paw at Ottawa Metro park.  We loaded up our bikes and went on the bike path.  I had never been very far on the path, so I was probably just as excited as the kids to explore. We loved it. I was originally going to run, and was pretty stoked that I took my bike instead so we could go further. Who knew it went right by the Whippy Dip ice cream stand?  This needs to be included in our schedule.

Now as far as school was concerned, we did get our math and reading done. I took a picture of Isaac in his 'spot' because he loves to sit there with his iPad on the floor and his head up against the couch. So funny.  We also got to bible time today (today's lesson was on Ruth) and the kiddos got to Zoom call with their church class. They did a cool scavenger hunt and we were at maw and paws since we were loading up the bikes, so they were running through her house finding things. At one point Isaac went running by with Paw's toothbrush!

We also had baking class today. Group effort.  Peanut butter blossoms. I don't care if it's a holiday or not, these should be a normal cookie to bake in my book.  Olivia is always the fastest un-wrapper, so we task her with that chore. Isaac, well he says he's the best mixer, but I'm pretty sure he's licking the beaters over there. They turned out great and they'll be gone in 2 days.

The last thing we worked on today was our writing prompt books that Mrs. Gomez sent home with their school supplies.  It's a book that they must have filled out at the end of the school year because it asks questions like who you sat beside and who was your teacher. It's a little book and pretty cute. I've asked the kiddos to take their time, so we're only doing a few pages a day and when we're all done, I might take pictures and upload to snapfish to make little keepsakes for them. It's a pretty unique last 9 weeks, and school year in general, so it might be fun to look back on them later.

Week 8, Day 32 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Somehow it’s Monday again.  I really don’t know how this is happening. Many have referred to it as the movie Groundhog Day. I’m starting to feel it.  This week is finals week at ONU, so I feel the stress and pressure on an entirely new level this week.  I MUST enter grades. Procrastinating and doing other “fun” things is now longer an option. So I think we will head to the lakehouse mid-week for something different for the kids to look at and entertain them while I buckle down and grade.

So for Olivia’s birthday, her grandparents from Arizona sent her something she’s wanted for a few months. My STEM-loving child has wanted a microscope and slides. So during science time, when I’ve been working with Isaac on other things, she’s been looking through her new microscope at her National Geographic slides. She’s loving these slides.  I would HIGHLY recommend the slides. If anyone has any other suggestions of cool things we should be doing with our microscope and slides, please let me know.  She is absolutely enthralled with this and I want her to keep her love for it.

Isaac continues to work on these ridiculous Math problems.  I’ve put a few pictures of them here so you can join the fun.  The one with the markers is simply me visually trying to show him what we are talking about in the problem. 

The last picture is a screenshot of most recent and uplifting news I’ve ever heard.  Elida school board have THANKFULLY decided to end school two weeks early. Can I get an AMEN?!  I’m so thankful and grateful for this decision. Next week I won’t have ONU and I’ll get to spoil my star students all week at homeschool.  I can’t wait. 

Week 7, Day 30 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Birthday-eve. We are trying to prep today and finish all schooling so we don’t have to do too much tomorrow and instead celebrate our wonderful 8-year-old. We even have planned in the birthday cake-run to Rachel’s Cakes in Anna into the schedule.

Kicking off today, it’s Spirit Day in #InThisTogetherOhio. I made the kiddos get on clothes and Elida spirit gear at that! A picture from our front porch of them trying to get in the spirit on this very dreary Thursday.

We plowed through the homework today too.  Olivia had a big day as she moved on from subtraction on XtraMath. She is so very excited to have this accomplished before she turns 8.  I printed out her certificate and tried to make a super big deal like they would at school.  I don’t want her to not be as recognized as she would if school was still in session.

 

Most of the pictures from today are the kiddos on iPads taking tests, so that didn’t make for great and exciting pictures. I do have a pic of the disaster (Isaac’s vocab word this week) on my kitchen table. This evening we got yarn elephant craft project from our dear friends the Zigenbusch family. Of course, she’ll stay up until this project is complete. Last night she went to bed a shade after 2 a.m. She has too much of our night owl tendencies in her.  She’ll sleep in half the morning, and I’m good with that! I will do the same. 

The last picture today is from tonight when they were just snuggled up watch cartoons on Isaac's iPad. Does any other Momma's heart melt when you catch an impromptu snuggled up session in place with your kiddos?  This momma's heart does, so grabbed my phone quick to snap.  Although they yell and scream at each other, there are moments of love. 

Week 6, Day 27 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Kicking off Friday with a Zoom call. That's what Olivia found herself doing at 10 a.m. this Friday. It's the first time she has seen her classmates since the CrononaCrazy has started. She was so excited she went to bed early and set an alarm for an hour earlier so she could be sure to be up in time. To say she was excited is an understatement. She asked to use my computer so she could use my headset and change her virtual background to something Disney.  I was laughing on the inside, but of course let her set herself all up.  She then told me I could leave. I heard her from the other room telling her classmates they were on mute. 🤣

 Isaac and I worked on his reading this morning and then I asked both of them to fill out the writing prompt.  Isaac didn't really feel like writing, but coloring. His favorite sport he listed today was track, which prompted an outdoor trip to the track. It was 63 degrees and just a perfect day on the track. So much so, I sent the pic to a few track buddies and said I wished I could include the smell- you know what I mean if you spend years of your life there. Ah, that smell.

We got home to a super sweet surprise. My SIL Wendy stopped by and left some treats on our porch.  She put cute cards to both me and the kiddos inside and then texted me down the road and said to go out to the porch before they melted. She also left me some Truly's 😘 It's like she read my blog and realized how bad I needed a drink!  I've never had one, so I'll let you know what I think.  I hear the student's talk about them all the time, but never had tried. So thanks Wendy for the drinks and trying to make me 'cool.'

Because I'm leaving for my sabbatical later this afternoon, I left the kiddos choose what they wanted to do. They picked this game that their grandparents sent to them called cups. It's a cute game and it has a bell.  Who doesn't love to hit the bell? We played several games of this before I said I had to get packed up to leave. Homework for this week is done and handed in.  Until next week my friends.  The hope is to come back rested, ready and refreshed!

Week 6, Day 25 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Happy Earth Day friends! I had such an exciting day planned today.  I stayed up half the night planning it.  Complete with writing prompts and outdoor activities.  That was until I felt Isaac beside my bedside whispering...mom. mom. mom.  

"What Isaac?" 

I took my math tests so you don't have to do them when you get up, but I got 57's on them. 

I spring out of bed. What????? Screaming no, no, no like someone had died.  Except, no one had really died, except half of me on the inside. Are you freaking kidding me?  No seriously.  We've been doing fractions for the last 3 weeks.  He knows this stuff.  HE KNOWS THIS.  And he waited until the TWO, not just one, but two unit tests to try to read these ridiculously worded questions and do it on his own? I was dead inside.  I turned into the ugliest 9-headed monster you have ever witnessed in a movie.  I could have won the role in heartbeat. 

Next I FaceTimed Jerm so he could witness my award-winning production. I then proceeded to lock myself in my room with my phone, computer and told them if they touched their iPads I was burning them. I decided to literally cool off with a shower and get all dolled up (cause I was losing my mind and it was this or have a Britney Spears moment and shave my head). I stayed there for 2 hours.  I got notes under the door.  See exhibit A. I was even sent a pencil, knowing I wouldn't respond.  For 2 hours I primped for no reason and sent notes under my bedroom door to my kids.  

I did write the Math teacher to explain what had happened and she gave us a redo- thank goodness.  The only video and the picture from the day is him retaking the test. Everything else we didn't do. I am going on sabbatical. No seriously.  Next week is dead week at ONU.  I'm running away this weekend and won't be back until my grading is done, my finals are prepped and I honestly throw in the towel until next week for homework with my own kiddos. Tomorrow morning we will power through all tests and everything for the week we can and I'm out. ✌🏻

Olivia did get her Earth Day writing prompt, and I've posted it here cause she's so sweet to complete it so nicely.   It was the best part of the day.  I'd post Isaac's but it's just another I'm sorry note, and it didn't have anything to do with what Earth Day was about.  

Happy Earth Day 🙄

exhibit A

Week 6, Day 24 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

This is ONLY day 24 of homeschooling.  

I know it seems like we've been doing this for MONTHS, but honestly, if we are just counting the days of actual school, we haven't hit the first 30 days...yet. 

With spring break dipping into last week, I think I forgot to do the interviews. Since this week we had the announcement that we'll be doing these CrononaCrazy Day Drills until the end of May then jumping into summer, I thought this was a good time to get some reactions of the kiddos.  Olivia always thinks that this might go viral, so she is very much into short, brief answers. Isaac thinks this is a monologue and he could go on for hours. I try to cut him off when he's going off on something that really doesn't answer any questions, he's just talking. 

Today was a pretty good day.  I only had to be online for one class, but it was a pretty important one, as it was my senior capstone students and they were presenting their final projects to the client. Read here BIG DEAL.  So during that time my real kiddos ate lunch and had their free time. 

Both of them had Science work to do today.  I was impressed with Isaac who liked learning about energy. I'm certain I had the glazed over look and found the one video to be absolutely dreadful- no really.  What kid wants to READ the video slides with these hard words? Nope, stupid. 

Olivia worked hard today on her spelling words.  I think she missed three and was losing it, because she is getting to the point where you have to memorize and you can't just spell it like it sounds. 

Then there was their Art project.  SUPER cute project.  Did take HOURS to watch the videos and then get all the supplies and complete the work.  It's also something that can't really be done unsupervised. UGH. I thought the final projects were totally cute though.  I might even run down and get a few blank canvas' to let them do again and hang up in their rooms.  Who doesn't like to look at a bubble gum machine?!

Isaac's machine says go Ohio State- guess who is missing his sports?

Best part of today was the dressing up for the "family meeting."  Apparently they've seen too many meetings where we dress up, so they thought this meant their Sunday-best too! I was cracking up when they came out all spiffed up.  Isaac even had a tie on at one point.  So naturally, I called both sets of grandparents to show them how the kids had dressed up for our family meeting to discuss our summer plans.  My Dad said since the meeting had to do with coming to his lake house, that he should be able to attend the meeting and vote. Isaac said he'd have to wear a tie.  BLAHAHAHA. So Jerm got home from work and we held the family meeting. Things decided included that we would head to the lakehouse, Olivia would get a fastpass to CedarPoint one time to ride coasters, and arcade games would be played. But, the best part was around 7 we got a Facetime call from my mom and dad. Mom had makeup on with her dress and dad had a suit jacket on with a tie. OMG we lost it.  We went back in and reconvened the meeting to give them a vote on whether the boat would be taken out and if we would visit one of the islands. Both passed. LOL.  

Week 6, Day 23 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

The Governor of Ohio declared that kiddos will not return to elementary school this year. Sad, sad day.

I can't post the video I made earlier today that I sent to a select few peeps.  One, it's nearly 10 minutes long. Two, it's only showing that it takes ME (not my children who have no clue) incredibly too long to get to one course assignments. Three, it's so frustrating to get on and see a music assignment that isn't optional and instead graded and takes us 2.5 hours to complete. I don't want to divide this up into 5 days and try to remember to do each part and get it uploaded.  Are you kidding me?  I LOVE Art and Music...but I'm already overwhelmed with homework and to have graded assignments that take up that much time when I should be working on my job I'm getting paid for (and students who ARE still meeting remotely online during scheduled classtime and the prep and grading that comes with that so they are getting their $50,000 a year tuition-worth) I was just in a bad place.  I don't want you to see my rant.  Just know that I had one.

Speaking of our beloved music assignment-- the kids love it. The video is them doing their work for it. It's actually just Isaac's assignment, but Olivia made her way into the room too.  This was the fun part.  The Powerpoint Slides we had to review and the submitting of the assignment from an apple device is enough to drive a person mad.

Bible time was eye-opening. We learned about Abraham and how he was willing to sacrifice Isaac.  As Abraham raised the knife the kids both buried their heads and screamed no.  You know how relieved they both were when God spoke to him again before he killed Isaac?

My favorite part of the day was our sweet neighbor girl Lydia who came and saved this momma for an hour while I had class.  Lydia took the girls on a bike ride so I could actually focus on school work.  Novel. THANK YOU!

Week 5, Day 22 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Friday!!!! Who needs to hear those words besides me? What a wonderful day today has been. Isaac greeted me and said, what are we doing exciting today since we do Friday's differently? We decided we would list out the 10 things we'd like to get through today and then draw cards from a bucket to determine how we would proceed.  Agozzino luck definitely played into this exercise. They drew "Free Time" last. 🤣

As luck would have it, Olivia drew #1 first- Reading. So we got that out of the way early. Along with hot dots and Xtra Math. Even though there were fun extras on the list today, they were doing all the required work first. It was perfect.

The first fun thing we did was dancing. We put Olivia's dance competition songs on and she was working on them. When we got to Acro-dance, she needed a spotter. We were cracking up laughing when I tried to lift her. Isaac assured her he could do it.  So we let them try.  There were way too many laughs, and eventually they came close enough. I called it to stop before someone broke a leg. But it was super fun and funny.

Cooking was also on the list. We got out Olivia's fun kid cupcake cookbook and she picked out making "cupcake sundaes." As you can see in the picture, they turned out super cute and they tasted amazing. I love eating the results of cooking class.

Bring on the weekend!

Week 5, Day 21 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Today was Thursday. I suppose to be in Scottsdale at the opening day of PRSSA Leadership Assembly, but like everything else, it was moved to an all-day Zoom meeting.  Thus we had VERY little online school today.  The pictures below are of the breaks I had to go check on them while they were being too quiet. Isaac playing video games, Olivia doing something crafty. 

The only thing I checked that they did for school was Math because it's only active day-of and not before.  That's annoying.  No working ahead.  Ugh.  Everything else for school, Jerm tried working with them both last night for a few hours to get ahead, knowing I wouldn't be available today.  I know they did some Science, Social Studies and Reading already. That was great to not have to worry about doing that today.

Olivia did make a cool rocket ship from a Pinterest template she found.  Watch the video of her rocket below.  Holding out for tomorrow- FRIDAY.

Week 5, Day 20 of the CrononaCrazy Day Drills

Today you are getting an update exactly how I feel about the day. Short because I'm over it.  After the third time asking Isaac to watch a video that start and stopped at least 6 times, I found myself locked in my bathroom sending video chats to Jerm to say he would be walking into a land mind when he returned home from work. I MUST escape from this house.  I need a new environment.  During the school year, my favorite spot is St. Rita's resource center at the hospital.  One, reliable internet. Two, the only Starbucks in town is across the hallway. Three, no one finds me there. I'm really missing my spot to escape. I haven't had to go there as often this year with my move to the business college. People don't know where I went at work.  I'm not complaining because I got more work done while at work than in the last 13 years. But I digress.

Today we kicked off with reading one-on-one while the other did hot dots. We're doing this from now on because this helped tremendously.  This also leads naturally into their reading work. Olivia is much better an Isaac working independently. I've found they both know if I'm not checking they just click submit and don't really read/watch it.  UGH.  So frustrating.  Have to check everything- even if it's not for grade- because later it will be and they need to read it!  

Writing prompt today was if you were a bee, what would you be doing right now?  Their answers were cute. Olivia had so much to say it went to a second page! 

We learned with Isaac he can understand much better when he can see the problem.  I sent a text to Jerm asking about one problem, and I think he summed it up well...

"You have it correct but it’s worded so dumb. I get what they are saying but it is just worded to confuse the child. Why? This is math. It is absolute. It has a right answer so stop confusing the child. This really isn’t math, it’s a critical thinking class. Which is fine but call it that. That question to me is not math."

Bible Time today was Noah's Ark. I typically get other things done while the videos are on, but listen in on the kids conversation. I love hearing them discuss or foreshadow what will happen. For example, when the dove brought back the olive branch, they were cheering and knew it wouldn't be long to find land.  

The Social Studies lessons was were I lost it (it got bumped until after bible time). Olivia is working on biographies. Isaac on the other hand was going to learn about transportation and his movie stopped a million times and he'd have to log out and get back in to make it work. Maddening.  School was cancelled for the day shortly thereafter. 🤣