Pat yourselves on the back people – you’ve made it through the first week of homeschool. Although they miss their teachers and friends, my kids have adjusted really well, I have a very loose timetable of academic stuff in the morning and a classic movie in the afternoon.

The kids wake up early and play on the iPad, dada gives them breakfast. Then 8.30 brush teeth and get dressed. 9am the bell rings (a toy horn) and I call the register for my two students. We sit in a circle and sing the Good Morning song with sign language from Lily’s nursery. We talk about what day it is and what’s the weather like and then they write/draw it on our chalkboard pillar, after checking the weather out of the window. It has been so sunny. Then we do Cosmic Yoga, trying a different one each morning. We’ve done Trolls, the flamingo beach one, minecraft, the grumpy hare and Moana yoga.

Then we do academic stuff for 45 mins to an hour. Tyler does the work set from school and Lily does colouring sheets and letter-writing sheets. This week’s theme has been Stonehenge for Tyler and he’s done comprehension on it, written a blurb, a report and made a sculpture of it from felt and packaging foam. It’s been manageable, the only hard bit has been when they both want me to help them at the same time and neither can wait – I’ve had to tell them that they have to wait their turn as there’s only one of me!

At 12 Dada comes in for workout time. We’ve been doing videos from Team Body Project. It’s been lovely to do an activity together after so long, Then I give the kids lunch, they been wanting “packed lunches” so I do sandwiches and crisps in Tupperware boxes.

At 1 we watch a classic movie as part of my home school – I want them to learn about the classics to improve their story-telling, get them to have more ideas when it comes to writing stories. So far we have watched the original 1937 Snow White, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland. It’s been an education, a real trip down memory lane yet something new for the kids. Only one Lily didn’t like was Alice, I guess that one is a bit weird. She’s really into princesses now, ever since seeing Frozen 2 at the cinema.

After the movie we just do free play, computer games, only 2 days we went outside.

On the Monday we did a pretend drive to Gerrards Cross, Lily taking us in her pretend pink car. She parked up and we went to the charity shop to buy toys (ie their bedroom!) I had a shopper bag and they chose their toys. We went to Costa (ie our flamingo table) and I made myself a flat white from our Tassimo machine, whilst the kids did colouring. Then we did a pretend Tesco shop. They loved this, thank god!

On Weds I drove to a quiet park for them to run up and down and hill, and the other time outside was on Thursday to jog around the block. My kids seems to like staying indoors, they haven’t been to bothered about going outside.

We baked biscuits on one of the days too, from a recipe the Nursery gave.

I am glad to get to the end of the week as my head feels mentally drained. Saying that though, it has been lovely to have this family time and to have their Dada home. How nice it’s been for the kids, Lily in particular, to pop their head into the bedroom to say hi to Dada through the day, and for him to be home at 6.15 as there’s no commute. We seem to be eating earlier as we’re all home, and the kids tired and asleep by 8.30/9, which is early for them!

All of this is with a tinge of sadness because of the circumstances. We don’t want people to be ill and dying out there, the key workers still going out and risking their health while they are keeping the country going. We stood at our windows and clapped at 8pm on Thursday for them, along with the neighbours opposite our building.

Lily comes out with “I miss Nursery.” every now and then and mentions friends’ names. It is sad. I thought we’d be back after Easter but it looks like this virus is going to take longer to get rid of. Last Wednesday was possibly her last day at nursery forever. I hope when all this is over, we can have one big party with her teachers and friends, even if she’s in Reception by then.

I will aim to write an update every Friday until this is over, and we can look back at this strange time and say, “Hey, remember that coronavirus thing?” One day, we will be able to say that.

To all my lovely readers, stay safe.

Sabrina x