Communication: All Are Welcome!

Hello friends!  Thanks again for visiting the blog for this weekly link-up sponsored by Hot Lunch Tray!

This post is week 5 of 8 in the #8WeeksofSummer Blog Challenge for educators.

All Class Virtual Day on Wednesdays!

Every Wednesday, I always signed on to Google Classroom at 8:15.  Class did not start until 8:30.  This way students and/or parents could pop in for a quick check-in or question. It was actually a very nice, casual atmosphere, and we would just chat about whatever the kids wanted.  Plus, parents and other family members were quite curious about online learning and enjoyed listening in.

In addition, I offered a snack story time during our online day on Wednesday.  I even invited siblings if they wanted to join us and listen to the the story.  I would borrow ebooks like Scaredy Squirrely by Melanie Watt and other fun titles:

The younger siblings especially loved being included.  I was happy to oblige because I love reading, and if these kids are happy for 10 minutes, this time makes a difference!  

Remind

This year we used Remind to contact parents.  Remind sends messages directly to the parents' cell phones.  Rather than sending home newsletters (although I did do a few), I sent quick and relevant messages to the parents.

I read many articles last year about how parents felt overwhelmed with the technology and online learning.  I tried not to add to their burden.

Online Conferences

I know that I LOVED having this option.  The parents seemed to like having a scheduled Google Meet set up just for them.  Of course, teachers had to go to school to do conferences due to the contract, but I was happy for the parents to stay in the comfort of their own homes.  

In closing

 A while ago, a student's father remarked how "at this age, you pretty much live with us."  Visiting online gave me the opportunity to have a glimpse into my students' lives and families.  Of course, I would prefer to communicate with my students face to face, but I think we all made the best of a difficult situation and became more resilient in the process!  

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Turning Your In-Person Morning Message Into An Independent Work Google Form

Hello there!  Today I would like to share a way that I make sure all my students see and read my daily Morning Message.

Background:  This year (so far) has been hybrid.  One group Monday and Tuesday; one group Thursday and Friday; and all online on Wednesday.

Years ago, I took a Responsive Classroom class and started a Morning Meeting routine which includes a Morning Message.  I always made my messages educational so that the kids could review what we have been learning.  

Hybrid learning put a wrench in my routine because only half the class could read the message.  That's when I decided to turn my Morning Message into part of the kids' daily independent work that they do on the computer every afternoon.

Step 1:  Create Morning Message.

I create the Morning Message in Google Slides using:

Here is the Morning Message for Monday:

Step 2:  Create Google Form.

To create the picture of my Morning Message, I follow these steps:

1.   File.

2.  Download

3.  PNG image

Then I head over to Google Forms and create a new Blank Quiz.

Add image (which I downloaded as a PNG).  Here is another example.

Step 3:  Add Questions to Google Form.

I always add 5 questions:  4 that review material in the Morning Message and one short answer for the Fact of the Day.

Step 4:  Assign to Google Classroom!

Step 5:  Go back and change the size to show on the "Big Screen" in class!

If you would like to try out my George Washington Morning Message in a Google Form, it is free on TPT!

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Happy New Year! It is time to celebrate with the "Currently ~ Just January!" link-up.

Happy New Year Everyone!  Thank you so much for popping in today as I link up with Anne in Residence for her monthly link-up:

 

Beginning

 

We are fully remote for the first week of January.  I see my students every day online, but it is so much better to see them in person.  I am hoping for our hybrid schedule for next week!

 

This week we started with Non-Fiction Reading and Writing.  I have been busy creating teaching materials.  Here is an example that I made on Canva which is an online design resource.  I use this site frequently, and it is easy and fun to use!

 

 

Feeling

 

As the week goes on, and I adjust to teaching online, I feel more confident.  It is amazing how quickly you forget when you do not use the technology for two weeks.  Every day gets a little better!

 

I am also feeling grateful that all our snow has melted so that I can go out for walks every day.

 

By the way, if you would like to check out an adorable book and enjoy the snow vicariously, here is a suggestion:  

 

 Organizing

 

I am definitely not organizing at my house!  I spend most of my time working on Google Classroom independent work which I need to assign every day for my students.  Every day I assign the Morning Message as a Google Form with 5 multiple choice questions; 2 questions to answer about our read-aloud; a chapter that I read to the kids; and a multiplication review.

Resolving

 

I am resolving to write in my blog more frequently!  I need to make writing a priority because I consider my blog a type of diary or record of what I am doing.  I have gone back to read some older posts, and I totally forgot what was going on "back in the old days."

 

The last in school day before Christmas, I decided to do dictionary work with the kids.  

 

I asked, "Who knows what a dictionary is?" 

Answer:  "Back in the old days, people had to use dictionaries to know how to spell words."

 

None of the kids had used a dictionary.  Amazingly, they were engaged and fascinated that they could find words they knew in the pages of the dictionary.

 

Consequently, I resolve to talk about the "old days" so the kids know how much life has changed in such a short time.

 

 Check out another creation I made on Canva!

 

 Wondering 

I wonder every day when life will be "normal" again.  I love walking with my friends and family outside because that is the only way to have a visit.  I wonder if school will ever be "normal" again, too.  What do you think?

As always, I appreciate your visit!  Please leave a comment to say hello!  Stay healthy and be happy!

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Pear Deck Perks: Getting Started

Hello there!  It's a miracle:  I am blogging again!  I am really excited to share a Google add-on with you:

I began dabbling in Pear Deck last spring when we went fully remote.  I love how Pear Deck makes lessons and activities interactive and engaging.  It took me time to realize that students can easily log on if I add the link to the lesson in the chat (My students would love to spend the whole meeting in the chat if they could!).  

In order to use Pear Deck, you need to add it to your Google Classroom.  You also need to log into the Chrome Browser.  Once you have added Pear Deck, you can take any slide deck and make it interactive.

This is a new slide deck I am working on in Google slides.  First, I create a slide deck; then I add the Pear Deck add-on to make it interactive.  I recently discovered how to add Pear Deck to the tool bar, but before that, I needed to click on Add-ons to access it:

 

Got Pear Deck, now what?

Open any slide deck.  Then open the Pear Deck Add-on.

Look to the right of your screen, and you will see the Template Library.

I have some free Pear Deck math activities and a "Would you rather...?" activity for you to check out.

In my next blog post, I will detail how to start an actual lesson and get your students logged on.  In the meantime, please try out Pear Deck and let me know if you have any questions.  I would love to help use this amazing resource.

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Wednesday Online Schedule: The Whole Class Gets Together for our One Weekly Session!

Hello there!  I'm so happy you decided to pop into the blog today!  I want to share some new ideas I have been trying online as well as wish you a happy and healthy New Year!  Let's get started!

Remote Wednesday Schedule When All Students Are Present

We are doing a hybrid schedule.  I see Cohort A on Monday and Tuesday in person while I see Cohort B on Thursday and Friday.  We are all together on Wednesday online so it is a special day.  Here is our Wednesday schedule:

8:20 - 8:30 Check In

8:30 - 8:45 Sharing (2 or 3 students share; I tell them the week before so they are prepared to share something from home that cannot normally be brought to school).

8:45 - 9:15 Making Words.  Last year, Ms. Ross, a Content Specialist, would visit my class once a week and do a making words activity.  My students loved it so I started doing it again this year.  

Click on picture of book to read more at Amazon!

In this making word activity, I share my screen on Kami and give the kids the vowels and consonants.  Then we get to work.  I usually start with one and two letter words, and we work our way up.  

Here are the letters we used yesterday (12/23):

a    a    e        c    l    m    s    s    t

As the kids say the words, I write them down.  Yesterday, I gave each student a chance to say a word.  If they don't have a word, I give a hint:  "What word is the antonym (opposite) of first?"  We end up with quite a long list of words that we sound out, and we talk about phonics, too.  We spend any where from 20 to 30 minutes on this activity.  

9:15 - 9:45 Spelling Test (if there is one that week)/Review that day's independent work/Review new material.

9:45 - 10:15 Inclusion:  Math.  

Pear Deck + Break-Out Rooms = Just Right Math

A para. comes to my class from 9:45 - 10:15.  Plus, there is a full-time nurse due to a student with a medical issue.  Consequently, I divide the class between me and these people; then the students are "relocated" to the correct break-out room.  

During this time, we have been doing Pear Deck that center on word problems, fact families and other math-related topics.  You can click here to check out one for free on TPT!

Snack 10:15 - 10:25

.  

After Math, it is bathroom break and snack.  While the kids eat snack, I read an ebook from my local library or the Internet Archive Library.   Last week I read Poppleton in Winter.  

I LOVE Poppleton books!  The kids LOVE the Poppleton books because they are funny, but they are also easy to use to teach theme and summary!

10:30 - 11:45  Directed Drawing/Cursive (if time)

We LOVE directed drawings!  I always try to connect the drawing to what we are learning in class.  When we were learning about the Wampanoags, I wanted to make a longhouse with the kids.  I could not find an easy how to draw on TPT so I made my own!  Click here to check it out!

10:45 Wrapping Up!

I am often online until at least 11:00 with students who want to chat and show me their finished drawings.  I enjoy this time.

 

11:00:  Independent Work Posted

For independent work, I post my Morning Message as the first piece of work.  My Morning Messages center on academics.  For the kids who are in class, we read the message together as part of our Morning Meeting.  I did not want the at-home kids to miss out on the messages.

 

Example of Morning Message at school:

vs.  Google Form Version

I always have 5 questions on these Google Forms, and they are self-correcting so that I can see what I need to review.  I do know that I absolutely need to review summarizing when we go back to school!

As always, if you have any questions or would like to know more, please let me know.  

Happy Holidays and Vacation!

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Online Learning: With vs. Without a Teacher

Hello everyone!  Thank you for popping in for this week's blog challenge topic.  Today I'm linking with Hot Lunch Tray!

This post is week 7 of 8 in the #8WeekBlog Challenge for educators.

Here is this week's prompt:

Describe your mix of synchronous (online in real time with a teacher) and asynchronous (online done independently by student)  learning activities from last spring/will provide this fall?

Synchronous (online with teacher) Learning Activities

When my students and I were online together last spring, we spent most of our time connecting by sharing.  Students were much more interested in visiting vs. actually learning while online with the class.  At first, the emphasis was on "making connections."  Eventually, learning standards were added to the mix, and teaching online became necessary.  To accomplish teaching, I used these strategies:

*Share a slideshow to preview/introduce/review material. 

For example, I taught fractions on a number line.  I would share my screen during our meeting time and talk about the concept.  I would review what was on the slides.  In addition, I made a video for the kids to watch later when they would be doing the activity on their own.

I felt that repetition and review were extremely important ~ especially when teaching a topic that we had not covered in class.

Here is another example for comparative adjectives.  I always spent time reviewing that day's slides with the goal of helping the kids understand the concepts so that they could complete the activities independently.

Here is the Drag and Drop independent activity:

Bottom Line:  I will definitely continue to create slide decks that are colorful and easy to understand.  During meeting time, I will preview and review the information as well as answer student questions.  One improvement I definitely want to make is meeting regularly with small groups of students.  I only met with the whole class except during my office hour.  I really missed getting to interact with the students as a way to assess understanding and make connections.

Asynchronous Learning (Done by Student Independently)

My Google Classroom assignments were always scheduled to be posted at 8:00 a.m.  When they were not there due to some sort of technical difficulty, several students would sent me messages asking where their work was.  I kept the assignments consistent every day:

I enjoyed creating these slide decks for the students.  It was a tremendous amount of work to create the work in digital form, but once I had my system, it came together.  During our Morning Meeting, I always reviewed the work for the day ~ especially something new like the Declaration of Independence.

Right now I am taking a class from Salem State.  I am learning and practicing Flipgrid (free) and Nearpod (free and paid versions available).  I'm really enjoying both of these "new to me" programs.  Nearpod has an add-on in Google classroom and has added lots of new templates (which I loved in Pear Deck). 

I am going to improve distance learning by adding more videos that the kids can watch.  I think it is so important to hear and see new learning concepts.  What online platforms do you prefer?  I would love to hear about them!

Thank you for visiting the blog today!  Happy August!

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Technology and Its Effectiveness in Distance Learning

Hello there!  Another week has flown by which means that I am linking up with Hot Lunch Tray!

This post is week 5 of 8 in the #8WeeksofSummer Blog Challenge for educators.

This week's prompt is:

What technologies enhanced/reduced your effectiveness this past spring?

Google Classroom

Before at-home learning, I dabbled in Google Classroom.  Right away I realized I had A LOT to learn.  I taught myself by making many mistakes, watching a lot of tutorials (head here to check out one of my favorites for locking down backgrounds in Google slides), reading blog posts and practicing.  I wanted to make activities that were directly correlated with what I needed to teach according to the State of Massachusetts.  Here is an example of what we needed to cover for fractions:

Represent a fraction 1/b on a number line diagram by defining the interval from 0 to 1 as the whole and partitioning it into b equal parts. Recognize that each part has size 1/b and that the endpoint of the part based at 0 locates the number 1/b on the number line.

Teaching fractions on a number line which can be difficult when taught in person.  I felt that I knew my students' level of understanding so I developed a week's worth of related activities.  This slide is from the first day's slide deck, and it includes a link to a Screencastify video I made.

 

Screencastify = Another Useful Technology Tool!

Screencastify is a free Chrome extension which allows you to record what is on your screen.  You can only use this extension if you are using your Chrome browser.  If you look in the top right corner of your screen and see an orange and white arrow, you have Screencastify.  I loved making short videos (the videos are only free for 5 minutes or less) to help explain new material.  In addition, you can post your videos to Youtube where I now have my own channel!  I made several videos about Massachusetts in the American Revolution.

Google Meets ~ A Mixed Bag

Our meetings were always on Google Meets.  I found this option to be unreliable.  Some days it worked, and other days, it was very glitchy which made it frustrating for all of us.  The best part by far, was making that daily connection with the kids.  I would try to throw in some academics, but the kids just wanted to visit and learn cursive or play Kahoot.  

Teaching cursive was not planned, but when I noticed the kids losing interest, I asked them if they would like to learn cursive.  They all perked up so cursive it was!

In closing

Overall, at-home learning was a tremendous amount of work because I needed to create all new material that was interactive and engaging.  I spent hours at my computer figuring out the new technology and incorporating it.  I kn

ow a good chunk of kids did the work and learned some of the material.  Other students' work habits and participation were fair to poor. 

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you are enjoying your summer!

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#8WeeksofSummerBlogChallenge ~ #RemoteLearning Takeaways!

 This post is week 1 of 8 in the #8WeeksofSummer Blog Challenge for educators.

Big Question:  What is your personal takeaway from #Remote Learning?

Just because you're working from home does not mean you are on vacation!

Teaching from home was a lot of work!  I did not have all my resources from the classroom so I have to make my own materials, and they had to be precise and concise because third graders' attention spans are very short.

We had to send a weekly schedule to parents so that they would have an idea of the week ahead.  Plus, the state of Massachusetts issued a list of teaching topics that were mandatory.

Fractions on a number line is a tough topic in person.  I hope my students learned some of the material from this week!

Learning to Maneuver Google Classroom is not Intuitive!

I had some Google Classroom experience but not much formal training which means that I am self-taught.  It was an enormous and time-consuming process in which I really learned quite a bit.  I even taught some of the other teachers in my district the basics such as locking down the background, copying and pasting, adding text boxes.  There is a HUGE learning curve with very little time to figure things out.

Out of everything I learned, locking down the background like this was my biggest accomplishment:

 

I lock down the background of all my documents before adding text boxes, and I have tried many ways to do this.  I would keep losing the PNG or the JPEG.  If you are having similar problems, try this way ~ it will save you a lot of time and aggravation!

The kids and their teacher really miss school!

I am in school until June 25th which means I am still actively planning and creating.  On Fridays, I have an office hour from 9:00 to 10:00.  Most students who visit me at this time are boys.  They miss being with their friends and being at recess.

We just did a unit on opinion writing, and I will say all the student do NOT miss the cafeteria which is noisy and messy!

Thank you for checking in on the blog today.  I'm hoping to be back next week to fill you in with more news!

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