This week was mainly spent marking. I shouldn't complain - at least some of the kids do all of the work I set - but it takes hours and hours to mark it all afterwards ! The worst thing about it coming in by email is that there's no end. Just as you mark the last piece, you hit refresh in your inbox and there's a load more. At least when you collect written work, you can see the pile getting smaller and smaller ! Ah well !
Sunday 3rd May - Another Sunday afternoon walk with Pierre. We're only allowed to go 1km for a maximum of 1 hour so we're limited in where we go, but as long as there's some space for him to ride his scooter or bike up and down and burn off some energy, he's happy and so am I ! On the left is a local piece of artwork - a crashed UFO made out of various bits of industrial junk.
Monday - Back to home-schoolwork for everyone. I had emails with work to mark coming in all day long, up until about 10pm ! When I went to put the dustbin out for collection, I noticed how the grass opposite our house is absolutely covered in dandelions. I've never seen so many - maybe it's because less people are walking on the grass verge?
Tuesday - Pierre was ultra happy today because we did all today's work AND all Thursday's work so, with no school on Wednesdays and Friday being a bank holiday, he was already on a weekend ! It worked well for me too as I was still busy working through all my pupils' work. I went shopping and grabbed some ice creams. One thing I've noticed during confinement is that it takes very little to put a smile on the kids' faces !
Wednesday - Pierre wanted to help out with making dinner so we made homemade potato croquettes, with ham inside them. I boiled the potatoes then he mashed them, added the milk and butter, mixed it all up, made the sauce, added that to the mash, shaped them with his hands and coated them in breadcrumbs. He just left me with putting them in the oven and doing the washing up. Hmmm !
Thursday - On Tuesday, I had a phone call from my boss, to organise a meeting at school next Tuesday so that we could all find out whatever we need to know for secondary schools reopening in a couple of weeks. Then I had a phone call from Pierre's primary school teacher, to tell me he's in group 1 so will be going to school on Monday and Tuesday, whereas group 2 are Thursday and Friday. Except next week, it's just Tuesday as the teachers have one day to get everything ready, on the Monday. Then, today, the government announced it's deconfinement measures, and we learnt that we're actually still in the red zone. (Earlier in the week, we'd been green.) This means that secondary schools won't be opening but primary schools will be, for the parents who want it. As I still had my meeting at work planned, I said that Pierre would be going, then yesterday, my boss got in touch again to say we'll be doing an online meeting with Zoom. So I don't know any more. I think I'll send Pierre to school on Tuesday, see how it goes and how many kids are actually in his class (I don't think there will be many) then take it from there.
Friday - A bank holiday, which actually makes no difference since we're in lockdown but for some reason, the pupils never send any work on bank holidays or weekends ! Strange ! I made some choc chip cookies with Pierre - yum !
Saturday - What to do on a rainy Saturday ? Reading Kim's Project 366 post revealed that Ancestry was free this weekend - aha ! Back to my ancestor hunting ! Thanks Kim ! :)
The marking sounds like hard work especially as it is a never ending job at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThe UFO artwork sounds interesting.
I got some ice creams the other week and my girls were overjoyed with them too. It's the little things which mean the most at the moment.
The potato croquettes sound so good!
I'm glad you made use of Ancestry being free. x
I used to pay for ancestry but it's so expensive, so I was really pleased :)
DeleteThe never-ending marking sounds exhausting. Love the UFO artwork. And the strawberry lollies look tasty. The potato croquettes sound delicious. For us I think opening schools would be too early. I just don't see how realistic the social distancing will be in schools. Sash goes now 3 times a week, but his class is already quite small in size, and now they have just a few pupils at a time. He loves it, and is much happier when he has to attend school.
ReplyDeleteThey have about 22 kids in Pierre's class and the maximum allowed is 15, so it's split in half but I don't think many will actually go in. We'll see !
DeleteWe haven't done anything with zones yet - interesting how different countries handle things. Hope school goes well for Pierre.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's maybe because France is a bigger country? Otherwise, we're following a pretty similar route.
DeleteYou should see my lawn for dandelions. Surprised schools are going back, or not, when you're still only allowed to go within 1km of home, very strange times, I guess we'll be adapting to change for a long time. Good to hear Pierre got ahead with his school work to have some extra time off and you could get on with working also. If I send an email on a weekend or in the evening, I don't actually expect a response until normal working hours, so I'd be sending you emails with my work attached lol
ReplyDeleteI don't mind getting some work done over the weekend - it's better than it all arriving on Monday morning ! We can now go 100km as from today (except we lose most of that distance in Belgium and the UK, as we're not allowed to cross borders !)
Deleteglad you had a weekend off to play on Ancestry, never appealed to me but a big thing world wide.
ReplyDeleteHow annoying with email after email, but nice they do not send them at weekends and long weekends.
The potato croquettes sound nice, I always find mashed potato goes gloopy and sticks to my hands making shaping difficult.
I'll share the recipe - this one had an added sauce to make it stick together better.
DeleteI can imagine that marking work that is coming in via email must feel never-ending. Hope that all went well for Pierre if he went back to school this week. The potato croquettes and cookies look yummy. #project366
ReplyDeleteErmm we might have remade the cookies three times in total - shhh ! lol
DeleteIt must feel never ending for you. Glad it all went well for Pierre going back to school. The potato croquettes look amazing as do the cookies xx
ReplyDeleteThey're both really simple recipes and Pierre loved joining in. I'll be adding them to the blog next week :)
DeleteYeah, all this online work must be tough for you teachers. Cute potatoes, great work Pierre. Strange to close secondary and open primary school. OoooO I made cookies this week too!
ReplyDeleteThe idea is to provide childcare for parents who can then go back to work ... in theory !
DeleteThose cookies look so good! I would like one of those strawberry lollies too. Hope things go well with back to school x
ReplyDeleteThey were so good, we've made them three times in the past two weeks ! lol
DeleteI think I would go mad only going 1km - that is no distance at all. Hope you get some clarity about work soon, I have been told I might be back on 1st June
ReplyDeleteBasically, I just went out shopping then at the weekend, I went for a walk around the block with Pierre !
DeleteI had no idea what that potato croquette was until I saw your explanation! Our schools in the UK are swinging into action for 1st June partial re-opening but the government have handled it VERY badly #project366
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit scary - we'll have to see how it all goes.
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