Distance learning has all teachers, including myself, digging deep into their bag of tricks. It’s not easy to engage and connect with students without being in the same physical space. You may be feeling inadequate. It’s okay. This is brand new for most of us! You are not the only one.
My school assigns home learning through Google Classroom. I use a variety of programs to teach. One of my favorites is Boom Learning, which I wrote about in this blog post: https://ilove1stgrade.com/five-reasons-to-use-boom-learning/
I needed to find a variety of ideas for distance learning in my first grade classroom. I filmed myself teaching lessons, reading books, and modeling how to do assignments.
But it’s just not the same, is it?
I have been grappling with how to get that in school, face to face feel with remote learning. I wanted to figure out how to connect with my students virtually while distance learning.
I want to share with you some ways I found to connect with students through a computer monitor.
ZOOM VIDEO CONFERENCING
Zoom is a great platform for building relationships through distance learning. Zoom is an video chat where the whole class can meet.My district wanted us to use this platform with certain guidelines. The biggest suggestion I can give is to force everyone to go to the waiting room before entering your chat. If you don’t know someone in the waiting room, do not let them in! We also do not allow videoing of the session to protect our privacy.
Zoom has been a wonderful platform for myself and my students. I shed some tears {and so did students} when we saw each other for the first time. It let us know everyone in our school family was okay. At first we did some check-ins and read alouds, but I knew that was going to get old fast. I had to dig into my bag of tricks.
Now I am doing special Zoom meetings at least twice a week. Here are some of ideas I came up with for at home learning:
You can get this idea list for free here.
My students have loved these special Zoom meetings and I love them because they help us build positive memories from home learning! I don’t want all of their memories to be from school. We can still have fun and build relationships from home. When we have theese special days, students giggle and have fun. Their personalities shine through in these special days. You can see their imaginations and part of their hearts. I loved Pet Day, Bedtime Stories, Show and Tell and Scavenger Hunts.
You can play any game you play in the classroom online. They just need some adaptations. For example, my class LOVES Four Corners. How do you play online without being in the same physical space? This is how we played: Students raise hands to show they’re ready. The teacher closes their eyes and counts to 5. Students then hold up a number on their fingers (1-4). The teacher picks a number 1-4, anyone holding up that number is out and puts their hand down. Keep playing until there is a winner. If you’d ike, the person who wins can be “it”.
Let me tell you about Scavenger Hunts since that is not a game we play in school. This fun acttivity is great for memory and shows students creativity. It’s a fast paced race to get items and bring them back to the Zoom Meeting. I started by saying 3 things and had the students repeat after me to work on their memory. Then, they were off to find the items. One round the word was “button” and several of my students brought electronic devices with buttons, not buttons from clothing. Oe couldn’t find anythig so she drew one ad cut it out. Another showed his belly button! After we get good at three items, we are going to go to 4. Here are a few ideas to help you begin:
You can grab these distance learning scavenger hunt sheets here for free.
As we participate in these special activities and onlinne learning, we use our classroom cheers and chants. They create a sense of normalcy because they were something we always did in the classroom. Whenever I suggest them, my students get super excited. If you would like my classroom cheers and chants, you can grab them here. They are a great way to increase participation while distance learning.
One more way I have to continue building relationships and community is through our Writing Showcases. Writing Showcases are a great way for students to tell about themselves and give the rest of the class a purpose for reading.
These writing templates are on Google Slides. There are 16 different templates for you to use with students. You can assign them on Google Classroom and keep them in a shared folder so everyone has access anc can read their classmates writing. There are topics such as, favorite food, my per, favorite book, favorite animal, best vacation and more. You can try one out here. You may also sign up for my free VIP Club and get the whole set with directions here.
Those are three ways I have kept building relationships with my students and created new memories for my first graders to look back on this time with a smile on their face. Do you have any ideas to add to this list?