Our time in the house continues this week, with an actual lockdown being put in place. Now, this didn’t change much for us, because grocery stores and pharmacies will still be open. But all nonessential stores were required to close. We continued our routine as usual, with some fun thanks to the Google pictures feature that has become available. The girls loved it! And Varun played a trick on his mom by sending a picture of a snake on our couch. She completely lost it! She was terrified about the snake being in our house and where the girls were! Of course, it was just a little trick thanks to Google! This feature has certainly been fun for kids and adults alike in our family!
Since Sara Gail’s “vacation” was over, the school decided to try and put together a home learning program. They had a few days the previous week, before the lockdown began, to put some video lessons together at the school. They had also created boxes for each student, and Varun picked up Sara Gail’s from the school before it was too late. The box consisted of two workbooks, construction paper, paint, and glue. The program they are offering now during this third term of school is broken down into a daily schedule for each grade level. The school is using an online forum to connect the families to the videos that they’re providing to go along with their lessons and the workbooks. Before we dug into the program for the week, Sara Gail had to do her daily school routine with her sister, which included a “body check,” something she gets at the school before each day begins.
So, the week of lessons began and Sara Gail and I entered the murky waters of home learning during the current uncertain times that we live in. The basic topics she covered this week were literacy, math, and handwriting practice. The school had also provided some fun videos including lessons from her Zumba and Taekwondo teachers, action songs to dance along with, and story times to end each day. She did well with the workbooks and handwriting practice. The only issue was that the videos didn’t last for very long, it only took up about 20 to 30 minutes of our day.
At the very least, this new routine broke up the morning a bit more to keep the girls entertained and keep the TV off for a little while longer. The girls still had plenty of time to play together and learn together on their own too.
Varun and I continued the week as best we could as well, trying to settle into our new routine ourselves. Varun was busy trying to get work done from home, and I was just trying to keep the girls happy, out of his way for a majority of the day and keep myself sane with my own projects. I’ve completed Abigail’s quilt now, I just need the supplies back at my mom’s house to finish it up entirely. (By the way, pictures of Varun this week courtesy of Sara Gail!)
This week certainly didn’t seem as eventful as far as writing in this blog is concerned. We were all just hunkered down at home as the reality of the pandemic began to truly set in. I watched as the confirmed cases of COVID-19 skyrocketed all over the world. I really started to feel panic myself as I worried for my family back home in the US, Varun’s family in India, and my French family, since my host mother is especially in danger because she is still undergoing chemo herself. But all I could do was rely on my wonderful husband and my beautiful family to keep my spirits up and to distract me from all this fear. I’m doing my best everyday to keep myself calm and just keep hoping that this pandemic will abate sooner rather than later. But I have lots of questions that keep cropping up: will we be able to travel back to the US this summer? What will we do about the supplies that we needed to get for ourselves from the States? And when will life look normal again for us?
All I can hope for you, my readers, is that wherever you are in the world, whatever you are doing to get by and cope with these terrifying times, you are all staying safe and healthy!
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