Virtual School

 Things in Ontario shifted to virtual learning for those children who are in school.

Which for me is just one. The other three are full-time homeschooled.

We are on day 4 of virtual learning with L. My issues so far are this:
The teacher posted an activity and told the kids to do it. L watched one of the videos 4 times and still couldn't answer the questions. When I asked her about it she said the teacher never taught them about community or growth mindset.
I let the teacher know this and suddenly the activity was removed.

The teacher tells them they need to do 1000 hours as a class outside each week. Okay, I am all for outside and being active!!! I do the math. It works out to almost 60 hours each week per child..... I don't think she thought this through...

The teacher tells them to go outside and identify trees by their bark! Oh, I love this we do this for homeschool with bark and leaves and looking at the trees we do it a couple of times a year while we hike! I ask L so you guys covered trees? and know what different bark looks like? L "No but you did for homeschool" SIGH

I help L with her schooling last week. She yells and screams because I make her sound out a word she wants to spell (the same thing I do for all three of the kids that are homeschooled). I give up after her being nasty for 30mins and tell her teacher I will no longer be doing the school work with her and that she will only be attending the online meets and things that are done as a group. Her teacher says okay I will do it with her one on one. This means L is sitting in front of her tablet fighting to do school with her teacher for what worked out to be a total that day of 8 hours...I wasn't impressed. I listened to some of it. She allowed L not to sound out words, gave her the answers instead of making her think about it.

Today I was listening to their morning small group activities. I watched L do nothing and the teacher asked "what did you get" L says "The same" and that is just good enough. No how did you get the same answer? no show my work? nothing noda.  I email the teacher to let her know that L is not actually doing any of the work and she just sits there and stares at the tablet.

In all of the time that L does her virtual school (8ish hours) and does not complete any of the activities. The homeschooled children do workbooks, 15 min break, a video about something they wanted to learn about (today it was what it means to be grateful), self-awareness journals, 15 min break, snack, learning game (Today was letter go fish), our group reading which was about star constellations, 15 min outside break, individual reading and sight words with me and lunch. They also either do a game on Osmo or a learning app. Then they are free to play until snack at 2 plus 15 outside and then more free play until supper.

Supper is when I say okay L you have had enough for today.

If she would homeschool without yelling and screaming at me about everything she would be homeschooled but that isn't how it works for her and I will not be yelled at, screamed at, and the rest of the kid's school and day disrupted. So school is for her. Do I think she is learning anything at all from this virtual school? no. Do I think she has learned anything since starting back at a traditional school in Sept instead of homeschooling? nope. However, I have to look at the family as a whole and what is best for everyone and that is L being in school.