How is everyone? I put a post up over on Facebook yesterday and the responses just broke my heart. I know that we are not okay. I know this is not sustainable. I know we are drowning.
Taking care of ourselves right now needs to be our TOP priority. This year, I’m on elementary time and not middle school time. This means that if I wake up at my regular 5:15am, I have an extra hour to do 20 minutes of yoga (shout out to my girl, Adriene, who is nothing short of amazing!!), a Calm meditation, and drink my coffee slowly. You have no idea how much I’d rather just hit snooze 6 times, but I sorta think this morning ritual is SAVING me right now.
I do hope you are finding a way to take care of yourself. I know it’s not easy for many of us to put ourselves first, but it’s necessary in times like these.
Okay… sharing a TIP and a FREEBIE today!
Each day, when my kids come into our Zoom session, I have an Agenda slide on my screen. This Agenda slide accomplishes three things. First, it lets them know the day/date. Next, it our objective (learning goal) for the day and our plan for the day. Finally, there is a “Do Now” question they can answer in the chat. These slides have been so great that I’m pretty sure I’ll use them forever and not just during this weird time.
Thank you so much! This is so helpful!
When you share the material, do you just select “student can view only?” Otherwise, I didn’t think any updates were reflected if each student already received her own copy.
Giving students clear expectations is a really good way to keep students interested. When I did virtual learning I always gave the students a heads up prior to teaching for the day. Although I only teach math it was still helpful to tell them approximately how long we would be taking notes, how long we will be doing independent work and then what we would be doing after. Once I told students at the end of class we would be playing a game they seemed to work harder during the first half of class. I still find this to be true today. Even though we are back to fully in person students still like to know what their expectations are for the day. They also work harder throughout the other parts of the lesson if they know they have something to look forward to later in the class.