How I stopped hating E-learning time

As any moms, I will do anything for my kids. Also, as a mom, I am used to being in charge of my day to some degree...minus tantrums, injuries, kid stuff etc.... which I’m used to handling, I guess. 

So when E-learning entered into our daily schedule as a mandatory to do, we sat together and tried our best to navigate the labyrinth of random well meaning teacher videos from their living room or kitchen table. All trying to explain geometry or paragraph structure to an imaginary audience of second graders. 

We coped with the struggle of opening google document after google document to try and finally submit the one sheet that credited our time in this circus ... the homework sheets! 

What I quickly found was that my son, who is very detail oriented, was studying these moments, and these videos for details, but not always the lessons intended. The details of each different teacher presenter, her room background, camera angle etc... He was noticing how rushed and frustrated I would get at uncooperative technology and ridiculous repetitive statements by presenters. He would feel rushed too, to get it over with and move on with his day. 

What I realized about myself is that I didn’t like doing this E-learning stuff either. I felt pressure to do it the way it was outlined for us. To make him understand it and figure it out. I resented being told we had to do this stuff by some digital source and not at all how I would go about explaining the lesson or how I figured it would best engage and make sense to my son. 

I worried that he was missing out on something, and among all the uncertainty of the right now, I was ruining home by infusing it with school! 

So.... when we got the final word that kids would be seeing out the rest of the year with E-learning, I made a few decisions. 

1- this is my home and in my home we do things my way

2- schoolwork will not ruin home, when done in a way we can enjoy, it will make it better

3- he’s not going back to school, so all we have to do is turn in the daily assignments- how he learns these lessons is up to me! 

4- I’m willing to put in the extra time to make these lessons fit his needs and be the best at it! 

And... it worked! 

My son is currently obsessed with video games. So with some help from Pinterest and PicCollage, as well as a bit of weekly weekend preparations, I make fun themed games, examples and ways to teach him the concepts and submit the homework to his teacher. I let it be his choice to watch the video lessons or not. I watch them before and review all the pages ahead so we ensure he’s getting the right content, but more over,he looks forward to schoolwork time now. 

We power through in a good way and he eagerly understands the concepts.  It’s more work for me for sure, but I’ve got time... I always will, for him.