Our last day of real school was Thursday, March 12th.

• We went back to get their school books Friday, March 13th – day our district closed and told us to enjoy two weeks of Spring Break
• We moved out of our ski rental Saturday, March 14th
• We started Home School Monday, March 16th, they were craving school/structure by this point.

Key takeaways so far:

Have the kids set the schedule using a template from their normal school. Here’s the schedule Axel set for us today.

Here’s the page from our district about Home School, I set the link to Elementary Education, there’s more on the website. What I noticed is the main focus, initially, is “not forgetting.”

I want to know what I’m going to do each day in lockdown. Starting from scratch requires a kid negotiation that is a complete waste of energy. The schedule gives my wife and me an easy way to tag-out and get personal time.

Get up before the kids and train. You will be FAR more patient and relaxed across the day. Monica is back in “crisis mode” up at 5:30am to exercise. We last did this in 2012/2013 when I got us into a cash crunch.

My kids wrote letter to your kids about the experience. Lexi Grade Five and Axel Grade Three. Lexi spent two blocks of literacy and Axel spent three blocks: outline, draft, type, edit, add photo, publish to PDF.

Schedule FaceTime after school for virtual playdates. Our youngest, 7 years/Grade 1, loves this time. I’m more of a “send me a text” guy. The BoCo moms figured this one out.

“Teacher” turns his phone off when teaching! I made the mistake of leaving mine in another room and my watch was buzzing the entire time, pulling me away from where I should have been focused.

We have a lot of baked good building up. They have done cookies, brownies, scones, granola, cupcakes… We are going to shift to “real” food.

Something I learned from my military friends, we maintain our standards. Everyone gets dressed and showered. Our son likes to lounge in his undies — that is only allowed outside “school time.”

A story about that… when I was riding across America we visited Marine pals at 29-Palms. As we were about to pull up, with a LT-Col in the car, “Gordo, you gotta put a shirt on to come on to the base.” Nice pool there, BTW.

Yesterday, I was stumped by questions in both Grade One and Grade Five math! Be willing to say, “I don’t know, we’re going to have to move on.”

You can eat at snack time and lunch time. Otherwise, water bottle!

Getting out of the house for recess is essential, if you’re allowed. Three rules:

1. stay out of the house!!!
2. six feet from non-family
3. don’t hurt anyone (because dad doesn’t want to go to the ER

Couple more movie links for you: Rise of Skywalker on Google Play (spread across two nights) and Teen Beach, to come Teen Beach 2.

If you have preschoolers then here is the FB link to where my kids went. Some resources there for you.

The first two days were tough for me. All I felt like doing was surfing the internet, eating carbs and drinking coffee. I had an off-and-on headache.

However… I know something about humans… we adapt quickly to bad news and discomfort.

After a week, it’s no big deal and I’m grateful to have gone through the initial discomfort.

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Virus Update

Boulder’s daily rate popped yesterday (0/3/7/11/15/19/27).

Colorado has maintained an exponential rate of growth: (33/44/72/101/131/160/183/216/277/363)

Saving these tweets about testing so I can refer back:

What will go down as the biggest breakdown in the US response to #COVID19 is the lack of test kits. South Korea and the US had their 1st patients on Jan 20 and Jan 21, respectively. Look at the difference in daily testing. By March 4th, SK was ~18,000 per day. pic.twitter.com/466Du8Iq2V

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) March 17, 2020

Similar plot of South Korea vs US #COVID19 test data today @nytimes; it includes more recent CDC data, the cumulative N of tests 55 days after each country’s 1st patient was diagnosed, confirmed cases, and has a different Y-axis display from mine https://t.co/UHKq5umcSy pic.twitter.com/VGr5e1s3XE

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) March 17, 2020

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I’ll share personal thoughts on Monday. There’s been good from the lockdown and I want to acknowledge to myself and share with you.

I caught my son’s first Scorpion on video yesterday. I’m still laughing.

I reached out to our neighbors and offered shopping help. We have at-risk people in our community, who probably don’t want to go out in public.

We’re starting to run out of the kids’ favorites: strawberries, bananas and apples.

My preference is to let everything run out to “build a little appreciation” in my offspring.

My wife thinks a more moderate approach is prudent (stay strong with healthy choices).

She’s right – I’ve been enjoying my crunchy salads.