The first few days felt like a snow day.
“At first, it was kind of cool; it was something new and different,” said Millers Falls resident Becky Kopera, who has three boys home from school now, thanks to closures spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Now, they’re over it.”
The same initial reaction was true of Chrissy Weaver’s family in Northfield.
“Everybody was excited because they were not going into their school system,” Weaver said.
She said the transition from school to home was relatively smooth for her family, in part because Weaver is a homemaker.
When schools closed, the Weavers decided to organize their own homeschooling curriculum. For the first few hours of the day, the children focus on whatever subjects they struggle with most. After that, they transition to “hands-on” learning, or activities where they continue to learn but in a different way.
Weaver said she and her family have designed a backyard “ninja course” with a series of obstacles. They’ve built a play set, gone for hikes and baked cookies. They have plans to go on bike rides, too.
“We’ve found that as long as we’re flexible with their needs and expectations, they’re usually flexible back,” said Weaver, who, between her and her husband’s combined families, is raising seven children between the ages of 1 and 11 years old.
For her family, homeschooling during the week has been the best part of the time off from school, Weaver said, as it has given the family extra time to be together.
But for others, juggling work with the role of parent and teacher, while finding ways to keep their children engaged during the day, is a new challenge.
In Whately, one mother said she is doing regular story time with her children, as well as engaging them in mindfulness exercises, yoga and dance. She said they are spending a lot of time in the family’s backyard.
“The kids are reading to each other, playing with LEGOs and working on art projects,” said Holly Johnson, co-president of the Whately Parent-Teacher Organization.
Both Johnson and her husband are working from home, she said. However, most of her time during the day is spent with the children.
“I am doing some work from home, but mainly focusing on homeschooling my kids,” she said, explaining that her husband can work from his home office. “I’m fortunate that my boss is being very understanding about how much I am able to do from home right now.”
Between working from home and stepping into the role of teacher overnight, parents like Becky Kopera and her husband, Jonathan, have also had to start thinking creatively about ways to keep their children both physically and mentally active during this time of social distancing.
Kopera said her sons — an 8-year-old and a pair of 5-year-old twins — are beginning to miss the structure of school and, of course, seeing their friends.
“We were playing a lot of board games, but they were long and the kids got uninterested,” Kopera said. “They needed to be more active.”
This led to their “Sunday Olympics,” a day of competitive games culminating with the presentation of a medal to the highest point earner.
At the family’s first Sunday Olympics, the Koperas played “best of three,” rolling a 20-sided die. In another game, they set up paper cups in the form of a pyramid and took turns shooting at the pyramid with a Nerf gun to see who could knock down the most cups.
They also competed in indoor cornhole, held a paper plane flying contest and played “best draw out of three” with a deck of cards.
“They were … games of luck, so the little guys had a legit chance of winning,” Kopera explained.
In each game, players had the chance to earn one point (third place), two points (second place) or three points (first place).
Silas, 8, won the day with 14 points — beating his father in second place by six points — and was awarded a wooden medal, crafted by Jonathan.
Kopera said the day’s events were easy to set up — which was good, she said, because it meant having one less thing to plan.
“It’s a crazy juggling act trying to do working remotely and parenting and homeschooling and all those things,” she said. “This took minimum effort for maximum gain.”
And Sunday Olympics, she added, gives them something to look forward to each week.
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 263.