Today was Eloise’s first day of First Grade!
I know, it’s a Friday. And the Friday before Labor Day. It’s a weird day to start school. But apparently, if we didn’t start on a Friday, our school year would have ended on a Monday (in June) and the school district didn’t like that. I’m not sure why that’s such a big deal, to be honest, since we didn’t even come close to getting to the last day of school last year, but I guess that’s just how 2020 is working out!
Eloise was REALLY excited to start First Grade this morning. She was up and dressed in her new pencil flippy shirt (thanks Grammie!) and ready to take on the day. She wasn’t, however, excited at all to be doing remote learning. Truly, I don’t think any of us are, but we are making the best of it.
We got Eloise (and Daphne, but mostly Eloise) a table for school (it’s this one from Sprout though it looks like they don’t have stock in many sizes anymore) and are using the chairs from our old Banner Toys (round) table. Last spring we used our dining room table for “school” and even though it was nice to have to clean up school things twice per day for meals, I did not like sharing the only dining space with school. We are hoping it will be fairly temporary (remote learning) but I think at this point, getting a table for the girls is worth it for things like art and independent play time.
Eloise will be getting an iPad from the school district, hopefully next week, and for now, we are using an old iPad Mini for her online work. Today and all next week will just be short mornings online with her teachers (she has two who are co-teaching this year) and classmates. After that, her normal school day will start at 8:30 am and she will have just over 3 (!) hours of online classroom time either with her full class and teacher or smaller breakout sessions, then an hour for lunch and recess, and for about 2-ish hours in the afternoon she will be expected to do independent study time (which looks to be a mix of some pre-recorded online lessons and offline activities).
It’s going to be a lot. Not going to lie. Thankfully Aaron was available to help this morning (he’s been taking Fridays off of work for family time) and can clear his mornings next week to help ease into the school year. I’m honestly not sure how I/we will manage needing to help Eloise with school work, giving Daphne attention and managing activities to keep her busy, and having a newborn. I am keeping my expectations low.
Even though it’s not the school year we all hoped for, we are excited to see Eloise in First Grade and know she will do so well!
Happy First Day of First Grade, Eloise!
M
{And here’s her first day of Kindergarten}