We decided to try out virtual learning when Sierra started her maternelle class this year. There were many questions on top of mind but the most poignant one was “Will this even work for our four year old?”
In our case, virtual learning consists of having Sierra sit in front of an iPad for most of the day. But let’s get into the actual details of her schedule:
8:30 – 9:15am (recommended exercise videos and meditation videos which I’m assuming any parent can just blatantly skip since it’s not like anyone is monitoring us) – While I’ve never checked out the meditation videos, I have to say that I’ve been checking out the exercise videos for ten minutes and then let Sierra do whatever she wants until 9:15. Vero sometimes even joins us in the living room to get some aerobics in!
9:15 – 9:45 – school time! Sierra has learned how to mute the microphone when she is not using it and she knows how to connect to the classroom via Google Meet when we are not around. Actually, a week into this, she INSISTS that she does this herself. Generally around this time there is O Canada, the Lord’s Prayer, and some other things that I don’t pay too much attention to.
9:45 – 10:00am – Break
10-11am – School time
11am – 12:15am – lunch break where I try and get Sierra outside doing stuff for awhile and then go back in and make lunch
12:15 – 1pm – school time
1-1:15pm – break
1:15 – 2Pm – school time
Then it’s all done for the day.
It’s taken some work to adjust our schedules (our household generally ate around noon), but these are minor points to adjust to.
After the first day, we felt comfortable that this wasn’t an utter trainwreck for our household. Sierra generally had enough interest to listen and do some activities. On the first couple of days, Vero and I (mostly Vero) were paying close attention via a monitor to understand what is happening and to help her understand what she needs to do. But here we are at the end of the first week and while I do have the monitor on, it’s mainly to hear if she is calling for help…sometimes she has touched the wrong button on Google Meet and her camera has flipped, or something like that.
School activities range from singing songs, playing with blocks or play-dough, finding an object on an image on the screen, coming up with stories surrounding an image. I find the most fun Sierra has are with the activities that has her running around the house. “Go and get a red object and come back and show the class!” “Now go get a blue one!” I was on the way to the bathroom one afternoon and Sierra zoomed by me and I said “Whoa, what’s going on?” and she said “I need to get the toilet paper!” and I thought “Boy, I’m glad I wasn’t sitting down and she came in and stole the toilet paper!”
I’m sitting here writing this on a Thursday and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a Thursday and everyone feels like the week has dragged on after four days, but I noticed that Sierra completely missed an entire activity and read a magazine instead. I was furious in my head but then I realized that at the end of the day, this is maternelle, it’s not like she is going to fail out of this program, and if anything, she stayed in front of the iPad and read a magazine in front of her teachers so I just have to remove myself from the situation more and more. If she was in regular school, I wouldn’t even realized that this stuff happened.
Vero and I are experiencing something that doesn’t happen all too often…it’s like we are sitting inside the classroom while the teachers teach. We can’t help to want to give assistance to Sierra in understanding the activity or not to get lost sometimes, but I have to learn to pull myself away and just let Sierra and the teachers figure out how to do this whole virtual learning thing. I can only imagine how hard it is for the teachers to try and keep an eye on 30 four year olds via a video conference. It’s wild.
After the first week, I think Sierra is enjoying class, and she does seem to pay attention to most of the class. There are a few days where she will come out and show us stuff she is making and we prompt her to return and listen to what the teacher is telling her, but we can’t really complain about this virtual learning experiment. In our household, it’s going good.
