Fun Activities On Zoom

1) Virtual I-Spy: This game can be done by telling your students to go find something...

ex: something you like to eat, something yellow, something cold

Each time you send your students off to go find something, you can give them a few seconds, and then they share what they have and then set it down aside. Once they have shown you, instead of wasting time, have them set the item to the side and give them time at the end to put everything up at once.

2) Virtual Show & Tell: Each day, the students can have a show and the teacher can give them a theme, allowing the students to do this can give them the opportunity to talk and share something they like.

3) Virtual Field Trips: Each day, the teacher can use a virtual background and talk about it. The students could be given an agenda for where they are going to be visiting each day so that they can dress like they are actually visiting. For example, if the background for one day is Disney World, the students may have Mickey ears that they want to wear that day.

4) Virtual Dance Party: The teacher can play some music and mute all of the students and they could all get up out of their chair and dance as much as they want. This will allow the students to get the sillies out and take a break from school work for once.

Marissa Lee May 7, 2020

Students Have No Internet? No Problem!

Not all of our students have access to internet at home, but we as educators still want to make sure they are doing okay. Some students most likely love going to school and talking to their teacher. A lot of kids cherish those conversations they are able to have, just like us educators. So, we must be creative and figure out how we can communicate with them, even if they don't have a computer to talk on. Below are three ideas that can help enhance that communication. If you have any other ideas, please leave them in the comment section.

1) Write Letters- Since we have all of our student addresses, we can write our students letters. These letters can be once a day, or even once a month. But, I guarantee you our students will love a hand written, personalized piece of mail specifically for them.

2) Parade- We can use those same addresses and keep our social distancing and drive by our students houses and way hello. We could even send air hugs from the distance to bring a smile to their faces.

3) Facebook Live- For those students who do not have a computer but do have a phone that they can use, doing a Facebook live and talking to the students could bring a lot of sweet smiles.

Marissa Lee May 7, 2020

How Teachers are Coping?

I had the pleasure of listening to a podcast called “’There’s a Huge Disparity’: What Teaching Looks Like During Coronavirus” by NPR and I encourage everyone to go listen to it!

Link: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/11/830856140/teaching-without-schools-grief-then-a-free-for-all

NPR interviewed 3 teachers as well as the head of a Baltimore school district to hear their experiences with the school closures and abrupt change of plans for the end of their school year. The teachers were distraught at the fact that they didn’t get to give their students a proper goodbye. More importantly, they showed great concern for their student’s safety, health, and education.

During the podcast, Cory Turner talks about the challenges that teachers are facing during this pandemic. Turner states “they’ve never had to do something this big, this fast”. These teachers literally left school on a Friday and thought they would see their students and teach their lessons first thing on Monday. Unfortunately, that is not how things played out. A lot of the students don’t have access to wi-fi or the technology to access their schoolwork. These students get paper packets of lessons and work for them to complete at home and turn back in, meanwhile, others are able to complete their work online and interact with each other and the teacher on a daily basis. This pandemic has truly shown the inequity throughout our country. This is hard for the teachers because they don’t want to see their students that they’ve watched work so hard all year, fall behind because of their lack of resources.

Another challenge that teachers are facing is how they can deliver meaningful content to their students who receive special education services. Ann Hibert, a special education teacher in St. Louis, shares her experience with NPR and says that she takes videos of her regular class morning routines and pictures of her class calendar and sends them to students or parents via email.

A speech and language pathologist in Connecticut said that technology has allowed her and her students to do almost everything they would in a normal session. She uses digital games and emojis to encourage students.

These teachers are obviously rising to the challenge. This pandemic has truly shown how innovative our educators are and their great abilities to adapt to their situations.

Overall, this podcast was very eye opening. It showed just how much our teachers care for their students and for all students. Our teachers are pulling long hours trying to create fun and interesting lessons and activities along with packets and phone calls. They’re checking in on each of their students every day or try to at least. They are doing their best to create meaningful lessons for their students and making sure they have all the necessary resources for the assignments or activities.

If you were to ask me how teachers are coping with the corona virus and school closures I would say: emotionally, they’re sad. They miss their students. They miss school. But instructionally, they are doing phenomenal!

-Mallory Beach