Distance Learning in the Home

 As a teacher I thought that teaching my own child from home would be easy. Boy was I wrong!! Trying to navigate through her live sessions, my live sessions, her computer assignments, my teacher meetings, setting up my lessons, and the list goes on, has proven to be incredibly challenging. My husband has returned to working outside our home, so my daughter and I have to be ruthlessly organized in order to make this craziness work. 

We started our year off with an at home schedule that follows our live sessions and allows each of us the time we need on the computer get the day to day stuff done for school for both of us. We color coded it so she can see when her favorite parts of the day are coming up and when she has to be focused and working hard. All of her quiet or independent activities coincide with all of my live sessions or meetings. This way she has an activity to keep her occupied that does not require my assistance and I know that I can focus on my meetings with students and staff without interruption. So far it is working really well for us. 

Her favorite time of day is Creative Time. This is when she does all kids of STEM or building activities. Some of them I prep the night before for her to use and others are from her Kiwi Crate kits. If you haven't heard of those yet, I encourage you to check them out. They have been a lifesaver for us during quarantine. You can check them out here. I am not sponsored by them. I am just a parent who really loves their product. The activities that we prep for her include legos and STEM activities from Brooke Brown's amazing collection of STEM products. With legos we pull her lego bins out and give her a step by step direction sheet of something to create. These you can find on the Lego website. Then she has to create a second item from her own imagination that could go with whatever we asked her to build. 

This schedule is keeping me sane and my little one busy while we are learning and teaching from home. I encourage you to come up with a schedule for your family as well. It will help keep you organized and help children transition back to school a little easier. 

Ashley

First Week of School with Distance Learning

 I did it! I actually survived the first week of school with a new group of students that I only get to see through a computer screen. I felt so many emotions while navigating this experience that I sometimes felt like I was on a roller coaster ride. I think it will continue to feel that way for awhile longer as our district just made the decision to continue to with online learning for an unspecified amount of time. Even with this wild ride of emotions and continual changes I will still give this new group of kiddos my all and I will share with you how I teach my new kiddos through my computer screen.

Every year that I have been a teacher I have always spent the first week of school doing fun getting to know you activities, going over rules and procedures, and doing activities that will help us build a strong classroom community. I did not want to give that up so I searched for ways to still make that happen, but digitally. I found a variety of activities, resources, and tools that were a great help to me that I will share with you in hopes that it will help you in your first week of digital teaching. 

We are required to go live with our students twice a day at this time so I split my activities between those two time periods. I began with introductions. Before our first meeting I had typed my students names into a spinning wheel. I presented my screen so my new students could watch it spin and see who it landed on each time. They loved it and couldn't wait for it to land on them so they could introduce themselves and tell us something fun they did over the summer and what they were excited about this school year. You can click here to find the website with the wheel we used. 

                                

As a second grade team we also found a cute digital All About Me activity that the kids create and then share if they choose. We are still working on those but they are turning out so cute and we are learning so much about our kids. We got the activity from the amazing Amy Lemons and Katie King. It is a free resource that goes along with the story Our Class is a Family. You can find the resource here.                     

                              

Along with Our Class is a Family, I read several of my other favorite beginning of the year stories. I started with First Day Jitters on day 1. On day 2 we read The Invisible Boy and on day 3 we read Yoko. 

That is how we spent our first three days of our digital school year. We have many plans for this week that I will share with you soon. Remember we can do this!

Ashley