Remote or Hybrid Learning Resources & Ideas
Sending love to teachers and families as we tackle yet another round of uncertainty and anxiety! I’m trying to take things one day at a time and remember that I’ve done this before when my students and I were not vaccinated. It seems like I will be in school in person with increased mitigation and vigilance. However, it also seems likely that some students and staff will need to stay home due to infection, so we may be teaching some students on Zoom and some in person at the same time. I experienced this set up for most of last year and found it to be the most difficult and least effective set up as it makes teaching and learning harder for everyone, but at least this time around it will be temporary and I have all my experience from last year to draw upon!
For those of you who are finding yourselves unexpectedly teaching online for the immediate future, here are some Remote Learning Ideas that I came up with when this all started in early March of 2020. After I taught online for some time, I came up with these Useful Virtual Tools that we depended upon daily as we made it through last school year.
One high success and meaningful activity that I always try to do with students in January is writing New Year’s Resolutions. This post is from back when I taught 5th grade, but here is a link to a video read aloud with some great ideas for younger students. This activity works well both in person or online (or a mix!) and you can provide an organized planner for your students, have them share orally, have them draw and write, or have them record a video (or more - the options are truly endless). If your students are worried or anxious about the changing situation, new year’s resolutions could also be a way to address this as you work to brainstorm strategies and share information. There is so much that it is outside our control, but acknowledging uncertainty and students’ potential concerns about it often helps students feel seen and sometimes more secure.
Read alouds are always invaluable classroom tools, but they work really well for helping students talk about or process feelings. Sometimes younger students do better talking about how a character in a book might feel and suggesting strategies for that character. Also, read alouds work when all of your other technology fails and students can always do responses on paper even if they are online. There are some great picture book read alouds and more general tips in this post about Mental Health.
And of course, here are some ideas for Games to Play During Remote or Physically Distanced Learning! Games are a great way to do so many things and being online, distanced, or some combination of the two doesn’t mean that we have to stop having fun, bonding, and working together.
Hoping everyone got some time to relax, catch up on sleep, and feel more like themselves over the winter break.