Homeschooling begins in NY
After being away from NY for such a long time - almost 5 months! - our whole family was ecstatic to return, if even for just a short visit. We don’t have our own “home” to return to and even if we still had an apartment in Brooklyn its not like we’d be able to park Big Dan anywhere. We landed in the dead end on the side of my parent’s property. Similar to most people right now, we hadn’t seen my parents since February, so it was a welcomed reunion, if not fraught with a bit of covid anxiety. We have been extremely careful to have minimal community interaction, essentially staying in our little Walters Bubble. But of course my anxious brain always goes right to the “what ifs.” Long story short - I had lots of worries/nightmares about being a silent carrier and getting my parents, sister and brother-in-law, clients, and the couple of close friends I caught up with sick - good news is that now over a month later I can verify this did not happen.
The time we spent with my mom and dad was so healing. The children just adore them both and soaked up all the affection and interactions they only get with Yana and Poppie. We were just as excited to see our cat Pan who has been living with my parents while we move about. It was lovely to expand into a house a bit, and it was a month that was simultaneously “lazy” and full of taking care of lots of errands, things that can’t be accomplished on the road. Things we needed to tie up, things I needed to purchase, mail to get, things I needed to schedule in - like clients that had paid for sessions that should have happened in the spring, and things Aaron needed to fix on the RV - because there is always something. The kids built some “weapons” to add to their foam weapon armory and got to play with Uncle Drew and Aunt Fanny. We had a late celebration of Amelia’s 9th birthday.
One of our biggest undertakings was officially starting homeschool. When we decided to live full-time in the RV we also decided that homeschooling was the only reasonable option, that anything that would require us to have a specific schedule and reliable internet for streaming would not be feasible. I spent the summer talking to friends and groups of homeschoolers trying to find the best curriculum for our kids. We have gone with literature and nature based curriculum, as this seems to fit our experience right now. We decided on using Blossom and Root for ELA/Science/History, Brave Writer for more ELA and writing, and Beast Academy for Math. The kids jumped into school, anxious to get back to have a schedule and some expectations. There were definitely some bumps, but nothing that wasn’t fixed with a break and a discussion. One of my kids in particular is a bit stubborn, so “new” things are always a bit of an adjustment :)
