(See this post for some background if this is the first entry you're reading in this series.)
The Core Questions
1. What did you do today?
- up early enough to have a reasonable devotional/prayer time before disturbances from others
- prepared packed lunches for the kids as if they were going to face-to-face school -- just sandwiches and apple slices (too much of the apple gets wasted if I don't cut it), but that's enough to keep them out of my hair when their main lunch-eating time conflicts with my teaching time
- morning class: Classcraft and Flipgrid sharing; notes on periodic trends to do with atomic radius and ionization energy; assignment given for them to start analyzing the elements of a fictitious planet; started a new habit of noting on a class list who contributed to the chat (and I let the students know I was starting that, which seemed to lead to some more participation -- and I asked my most eager chat participant to hold back a bit, which she indicated she completely understood -- and I also implemented some "wait time"/"don't answer in the chat yet!" for some questions)
- dentist appointment (the mall the clinic is in was a ghost town due to the current nonessential retail shutdown!)
- hosted the 30-minute weekly #flipclasschat on Twitter
I didn't blog this weekend, so here are some notable events from the weekend:
- brought some sanity to the kitchen, including setting up a special spot for myself at the kitchen table for work when I'm not "live"/on camera (trying this as my planning and marking spot for times when I need to signal to my mind that it's more serious than when I try to do it more comfy on couch while still giving myself a change from my livecasting station in the dining room)
- cut my youngest's hair
- dyed my own hair blue/purple (a mix of two Arctic Fox colours)
- watched church via livestream
- organized some credit recovery work and two drop-in sessions for this week for a few of my students from the previous quadmester; emailed the relevant students/parents
- the first episode of a new podcast series I'm a semi-regular guest on got released! It's called The Mustard Seed, and it's aimed at educators who are Christians. You can check out the pilot episode here if you're interested.
2. What did you enjoy?
It's always nice to connect with other "flippers" during the #flipclasschat.
3. What did you find difficult?
I had a case of the Mondays and didn't really want to do anything productive, but class started and was done with early enough that I didn't have much time to kvetch about it before it was time to carry on with the rest of the day. (Class itself did go just fine...I felt lazy but still did what we needed to do.)
4. What has changed?
Prepping the kids' lunches at the start of the day.
Doing some work at the kitchen table rather than only in the dining room (best place for livestreaming but not a great "feel") or on the couch/bed (too comfy/casual at times so I may not take the work seriously enough, or may find it hard to relax in those spots as much because they're now somewhat associated with work, too).
The Stretch Questions
5. What are you grateful for?
I am once again so glad to be back to teaching only 1 course instead of 2. I am not a morning person, but being able to get the teaching hours out of the way this morning and then focus on everything else I need to accomplish today (including more work, don't get me wrong) was helpful today.
I am grateful to my weekend self for the cleanup she did. It made getting myself and the kids ready much more sane this morning.
6. Which changes do you want to keep?
I'm enjoying having a special spot prepared for myself in the kitchen. This seems to be working well. I might add a cushion to the seat, though the kids still have a habit of using the chairs as stepstools to the cupboards so maybe not (or maybe I'll just have one off to the side I can use when I'm here). I even had my oldest sit there for his breakfast, and had the whole family eating dinner at the table together, gasp! We really need to work on doing this more often...the oldest doesn't even have the training to ask if he can be excused from the table and seemed to take it for granted that it was fine to go resume video game time once he was full.
7. What are you scared of?
Scared may be overstating it, but maybe concerned about how much the kids are taking in through screens when my husband and I are otherwise occupied. I miss having daycare to provide activities and socialization for my youngest especially -- I used to stay at school after classes and do some planning while he participated in that for a bit. Mind you, I wasn't a daycare kid myself, but I also didn't spend as much time staring at a device/TV as my kids are doing these days.
8. What has stayed the same?
I've been reminded how much I enjoy getting an area cleaned up. While I may find it overwhelming and get super stressed trying to figure out how to start, when I've actually imposed order on former chaos I feel very calmed. Even folding a pile of laundry gives me an external sign that I am capable of bringing order to chaos, and so I must surely be capable of handling the less tangible chaos I sometimes feel I have inside my head, too.
9. When did you last laugh?
Someone sent me this physics joke via Facebook Messenger, and it amused me today:
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