Back to School Activities for Distance Learning
I (Nina) am preparing to go back to work after my extended maternity leave. This is shaping up to be an unpredictable and unprecedented school year, but I hope my students and I can still find joy in learning and getting to know each other. My school has decided that we will start the year fully remote, although we are small (and independent) so we are lucky to have an option of some in-person small group meetings to meet students and parents, do some technology training, and distribute materials at the beginning of the year.
Conceptualizing distance learning has been challenging for me. In August of 2018, I wrote about some of my favorite ideas to start the school year and I am trying to think about how I can still do some of those activities with my students, maybe with a new twist! I try to think about the purpose of the activity and how we can still achieve the essence of it in a new way.
Here are some ideas:
Names! Name activities are the best. They provide an opportunity for you to learn about your students and ask them how they would like to be addressed in class. They also create a chance for you to share something about yourself while learning about students’ identities. They are my absolute favorite and I am excited to brainstorm ways they can still work:
Create your Name: this activity was inspired by SEED. Have your students create their name in a way that feels good to them, using whatever materials they have on hand. You can explain the activity by modeling how you created your own name (using scrap paper or whatever else you have around the house). I used to take students’ photos holding their “name masterpieces” and put those up outside our classroom, but you could have students submit photos of their work and share them, or even put photos of their “name masterpieces” together into a collage and make it your virtual background (or if you have a way of collecting physical papers from your students, put them up on your wall, but this seems complicated). Here are some digital collage resources, and I’ve also used Google Photos to do something similar in the past. I love the idea of creating a collage (virtually or otherwise) as it’s important for students to see all their names together and know you are still a classroom community. It’s also great for new students as this way everyone knows how they would like to be addressed.
Name Stories: these are always fascinating, validating, and so much fun! I always introduce name stories with a read aloud (see name related read aloud ideas below), and then give students prompts to interview each other and ask about the story of their name. Interviewing each other on live video might not be possible, but you can have students interview a family member about how they got their name. Some great questions to give students to start with: Who chose my name? Why did they choose this name for me? Am I named after someone? What does my name mean or what significance does it have? What do you like about my name? After the interview (which you can skip depending on logistics), students can write their “name story.” This is a wonderful activity to get to know students and students enjoy it as well because they can share as much as they like or choose to focus on one aspect of their name that feels good to them.
Class “My Name” Poem: This extension of name stories is a great way to build community. I’ve participated in this activity as part of a group of adults, and we loved it and felt more connected afterward. Ask each student to choose one sentence from their name story to share. If you are in person, you can have students write their sentences on a post-it. If not, they can simply read it aloud or post it on Seesaw, Google Docs, etc if you are using that type of tech. I liked having each student read their sentence aloud and then I would type them or write them down, but it can be hard to keep up, so it’s nice to have them submit their sentences as well. Once you have all their sentences (don’t forget to include one of yours!), sit down with them when your students are elsewhere and arrange them into a poem. Later, share the poem with your students. They will love hearing their sentence and appreciating what the class created together.
What’s Your Name Worth? This is a great Math activity that helped me start the year by seeing how my 3rd grade mathematicians approached a puzzle. For 3rd graders, we gave them a chart showing all of the letters in the alphabet and a corresponding value in cents (for example, a is worth one cent, b is worth 2 cents, etc), but you can create your own chart with negative and positive values, Math problems, or really whatever works for you and your students. Once students found the value of their name, they could choose a teacher’s or family member’s name and then had to try and find names worth exactly twenty five cents or a dollar. Again, this is something they could work on independently and then either verbally share what their name is worth or post it on a website.
Name related read alouds (for the chapter books, you can read an excerpt of the relevant part): A House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jackie Woodson, Thunderboy Jr. by Sherman Alexie, The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi, The Favorite Daughter by Allen Say, My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits and Gabi Swiatkowska, My Name is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ada - and there are so many more!
Start a read aloud: We start a chapter book on the first day of school and it engages students in a shared reading experience from the very beginning of our time together. We read Save Me a Seat for our first read aloud last year and it was a perfect back to school book that fit into so many of the things we talked about (our needs as learners, our classroom contract, goal setting, appropriate challenge, and more)
I Wish My Teachers Knew: give your students the opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns with you. This year, this is more important than ever!
Numbers Important to Me: we use this activity to introduce our Math binders. In the past, we made the cover of our Math binders our “Numbers Important to Me” pages, but this year they could be shared virtually or displayed at home. Students write (and decorate) numbers and why they are important to them. For example, “5 - because I have 5 people in my family.” Make sure you make an example about yourself so your students can learn about you as well. This can be done on paper or on a computer - whatever works best for you and your students!
Top Ten Lists: read the first chapter of The Top Ten Ways to Ruin the First Day of School for inspiration and then make a “Top Ten Things to Know About [insert your name]” list. Again, make an example to share! Students LOVE reading these about each other, so would be great to share virtually. If you want to do a live share, I’d suggest telling each student to choose ONE thing about themselves to share.
Letter to Yourself: this can be a wonderful first day or week homework assignment (for older students) or an in class activity. Have students write letters to themselves making predictions about the school year. In the past, we would seal them in individual envelopes, put them away, and then give to students on the last day of school, but this year, you could have students email you letters or submit documents however works for you, and still either send them back to them or print them and hand them back (if we are in person again) at the end of the school year. This can also be a great tool for goal setting! I’d suggest creating an example that you wrote talking about how this year is new for you and what you are going to work on as this will be excellent modeling for students.
Hopes & Dreams: set hopes and dreams for this school year. I always model with one of my own and try to have one that is social emotional focused and one that is about learning or trying something new. You could explicitly model to students how you modified your hopes and dreams for this year in a new setting or format. Later, use your students’ hopes and dreams to move into creating classroom rules and goal setting (more ideas and details are available from Responsive Classroom).
Guess Who?: have students send in three “clues” about themselves (tell them beforehand that these should be things they are comfortable sharing) and every day, have a different “mystery student” where you share the clues throughout the day and take guesses about which student you are learning about! You may want to ask for more than three clues and then only share three in case the clues are too obvious or something you’d rather not share.
Reader Survey: I’ve found that my students love filling out surveys online (we usually use Google Forms). I get so much more information from them through this medium, although they often use emojis to express themselves as well. Make a survey to get to know your students as readers. This is extra important right now as reading is one thing we can encourage students to do as an academic activity, but also something fun to do when other fun options are mostly off limits. Since we won’t be able to recommend books to students in person, knowing them as readers so we can try to recommend books through online platforms or the public library (ours in DC are open now with mostly “take out” service) is so important.
Daily Life Word/Story Problems: this is a great way to model how we incorporate Math into our daily lives. Start by sharing some you wrote about your day. I’ve discovered that students love anything about babies and pets (don’t we all?). For example, I gave my baby 17 pieces of mango. He dropped 5 on the floor, put 2 in his hair, gave 1 to me, and ate the rest. How many pieces of mango did he eat? After you share, give students an assignment to write some of their own, and then during your next class (or later in class), they can share their problems and discuss different ways to solve them and “prove” their answer is correct.
Share a photo: this depends on your comfort level and what you feel is most appropriate for your students. My co-teacher and I are sending our students a photo postcard of us (email or posting on a site would work too) so they can see our faces before the school year begins and get a nice note from us welcoming them to our class. If you are sharing photos virtually, it might be nice to send multiple photos showing how you are getting ready for the school year.
There are, of course, so many more ideas and possibilities, so please comment below with any of your go-to beginning of the school year activities and tips for modifications! If you are starting the year in person or in a hybrid model, any of these activities could still work. Sending strength to all teachers starting this new year, but especially those who still don’t know what their school year will look like, or how they will stay safe and keep their students safe.