I am relishing home schooling my two primary school-aged children.

This period of isolation allows me to apply what is both timely and what interests them to their learning activities.

This is their opportunity to develop new skills, and it is my time to enjoy being their mother, as well as their teacher over the next few months.

Camilla will learn to sew. With my neglected machine, she will plan what to make while being encouraged to use any of the fabrics that I have stored for a rainy day.

Clive will design and construct a time capsule. He will be responsible for the entire project, while learning project management skills. In the workshop, Tom will teach him how to weld.

Both Clive and Camilla will determine where it's buried and when it will be opened.

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The children will recount their experience of COVID-19 with daily writing activities to reflect the news, statistics and geography. The spelling list will begin with "epidemiology", "pandemic", "viral" and "respiratory".

They will also write about isolating from their farming cousins who live close by. These stories will be scanned for their school teachers before being buried in the time capsule.

I recognise that farming offers space and a level of everyday isolation.

There is no difference for us in staying home over the Easter weekend and stick-picking paddocks.

I have also started emptying the former black smith's shed that is beginning to collapse. Once a vertical slab hut, the frame is made from hand cut saplings.

This building is a time capsule. History is shared through the S hooks, plains, cross saws, bellows, hay forks, and even an ammunition tin.

These items mark a time of self-sufficiency and social isolation.

My mother-in-law, Sue, said there were four gates between the road and our two houses.

Outings were every few weeks and there was no urgency to come and go.

In the early 1970s, Sue and Tom Sr re-directed the driveway, reducing the four gates to just one to enter and exit the farm.

I believe that we are capable of socially isolating and perhaps farmers are more rehearsed at being alone.

I look forward to teaching our children.

Their companionship will be a treasured memory.

The time capsule and their stories will reflect this experience.

I just hope they embrace this period of solitude as much as I do.

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