scheduling conflict
Zion, grade 4
School in Bedford started yesterday, sort of, so we took our traditional start-of-school photos. There was no chance to go to the bus stop, of course, since it was a virtual school day for all the kids. Today Cohort A actually went to school for the first time; tomorrow it's Cohort B's turn. I was hoping that the public school kickoff would give us a little more uninterrupted time—the summer is full of fun times with neighborhood friends, even in the Covid era—but no, at least not yet. The schools are easing into this hybrid model, with half days every day this week. I suppose that makes sense: it's been a long time since either kids or teachers have been in the school building, and they might not remember how things are supposed to go. But it means that the boys have been out playing almost as much as they were last week, at all hours of the morning and afternoon.
Of course, I can't put all the blame for our slipshod schedule on outside forces. We're not the best at making plans and sticking to them. Unless, of course, you're talking about plans for outings: those continue to occur regularly. It's so much more fun to go where interest takes us! Before breakfast Elijah was wondering about a pennyfarthing bicycle in the picture book we were reading, so our morning lesson was all about bike history and mechanical advantage. There's now some desire among the children to build a period-accurate dandy horse—or at least to take the cranks off an old bike so they can run it around. That all took an hour or so, then we did some math, and then Bedford school was over for the day and so was ours. That's fine.. it's going to be a long year!
Elijah, grade 1
Harvey, grade 6