Happy Summer Break!
We made it!
As I start to soak up the summer break it leads me to reflect on this past year. I am so proud of my community. We were supportive and kind in facing the challenges required. My class families showered me with kindness and support throughout the process and I will be eternally grateful. In my classroom I have a poster that says, "We rise by lifting others" and this year has certainly shown this to be true. When adjusting to this new normal started to feel to hard someone always reached out and helped. I feel grateful for my coworkers, families, and students.
Digital Citizenship
My students had learned about digital citizenship through the google's Be Internet Awesome program at the start of the year and put it to practice as we moved to distance learning. I love that it is free, engaging, and facilitates excellent conversations. There is a family and educator curriculum that I highly recommend. Each lesson has a game that matches with it and my 5th graders loved them. This program would work for other grade levels, but I especially like that the lessons opened up conversations about social emotional learning that went beyond online topics.
Digital Escape Rooms
After a training by my district I began to explore the world of digital escape rooms. I found it to be a rewarding way to get students to have voice and choice in their learning. There are many digital escape rooms already created, but I had fun making ones that would fit with my community and student need. My students collected their earned badges in a google slide deck that they decorated like a trophy case. This was a fun and motivating way to show learning and celebrate achievements. I will add more to the linked site as the summer unfolds, but please enjoy the first one to escape from 5th grade.
Morning Meetings
We had a morning meeting everyday during distance learning and I wanted to share some things that worked. At the beginning I shared a slide with the structure of the meeting and estimated times we would spend on each sections. I kept the structure the same to allow for predictability and routine. I saved extra time at the end for questions and things that came up during the meeting.
Greeting:
This was so important as students were not seeing each other with the distance learning. I greeted students by name as they joined the meeting and encouraged them to do the same. At first I listed student names on the google slide so that they would know what order to go in. As we got more comfortable I let students call on each other to greet them, but kept a sentence frame visible so that they could fall back to the predictable structure if needed.
Share:
Students always want to share and this was my favorite part of the meeting. If we had a longer activity planned I could have them share in answer garden, padlet, or in the chat section of our meeting. Offering multiple ways to share depending on the day allowed for more voices to be heard. My shy students loved being able to reflect on what they wanted to share in the padlet or answer garden. My more outspoken students loved to be able to have the floor for a while and talk. Share became a fun way to add variety in a safe way that kept students connected and aware that they were not alone in their feelings.
Activity:
The activities were the most looked forward to time for my students. They love a good game and I wanted to share some that worked really well in the digital landscape. kahoot was a favorite in the classroom and being able to do it from a distance was really fun. I loved hearing student giggles, jokes, and chatter as we played. The freedom to either make one or search for a premade kahoot made my life much easier. We also adapted games that had been played in the classroom to the digital space. Alibi is a fun game where students try to figure out who the gremlin is. The detective asks students for their alibi proving they could not have caused the mischief. The second time that the detective asks the students only the gremlin changes their answer. I loved this game because it got students to listen carefully to each other and be precise with their language.
We played a version of mafia where the Spymaster was trying to find spies from the other side. This fit really well with our learning about the American Revolution. 
We did some pictionary, and even had students paste images instead of having to draw everything. It really got their critical thinking skills going. charades was a bit challenging but fun and lots of laughs. My personal favorite was taking students on virtual field trips. The best one was Buckingham Palace and I highly recommend it to anyone that has even been there because the zoom feature is breathtaking. My students gasped as we zoomed in to see the angels etched in the dome. 
Morning Message:
This proved to be a meaningful way to share some social emotional mini lessons. I tried to have a short video to hook the students and show the application or real world need of the skill targeted. Some of my favorites with the targeted skills are listed below.
Share what you are reading and read alouds
On our google classroom I had an assignment each week to share what you are reading. I asked students to share if they liked it and what someone might enjoy about the book. It was fun for me to see what they were reading and fun to see students commenting back and forth about books. The best recommendations for books usually comes from friends and I was happy to keep this going online.
I've started making videos for book recommendations on my you tube channel ranging from 5th grade level to adult. I love watching recommendation videos on you tube and wanted to add some overlooked books there.
In my classroom read alouds are a very important part of each day and I wanted to continue this so I recorded my read alouds and if you want to check them out they are on my you tube channel.
Things I learned during distance learning
I knew that small group time was important before distance learning, but it became a precious tool during distance learning. I was able to have my undivided attention on 4 students during these times and I loved being able to adapt each group to what they needed in that moment. One day all the group members seemed to really need have some social time and we just shared our pets. It was magical and exactly what they needed. We did eventually get into our math for the day, but I couldn't help but think how lucky we were to have the technology to be able to just be there for each other and the flexibility to see what these children needed.
I found myself more open to giving students a choice in how they were going to show learning. This was a powerful takeaway that opened my mind to ways to include this when we are back in the classroom. For example, I assigned several articles in Newsela and had students choose which they wanted to read. My targeted skill could be met with any other the articles and offering choice was a method to engage them in their learning. Newsela offers a wide range of articles about multiple perspectives during the American Revolution and it was a powerful way to have students choose each week if they wanted to read about the African American soldier's perspective, women's perspective, enslaved person's perspective, or Native American perspective. We would discuss all the articles in small group and through letting go a bit I found students more passionate about sharing what they learned.
I realized in a more real way how important equity is. Being able to have a glimpse into what students are facing as challenges to learning was a gift. I look forward to working with my team to be an advocate for more equitable practices in my classroom and beyond.
As I start to soak up the summer break it leads me to reflect on this past year. I am so proud of my community. We were supportive and kind in facing the challenges required. My class families showered me with kindness and support throughout the process and I will be eternally grateful. In my classroom I have a poster that says, "We rise by lifting others" and this year has certainly shown this to be true. When adjusting to this new normal started to feel to hard someone always reached out and helped. I feel grateful for my coworkers, families, and students.
Digital Citizenship
My students had learned about digital citizenship through the google's Be Internet Awesome program at the start of the year and put it to practice as we moved to distance learning. I love that it is free, engaging, and facilitates excellent conversations. There is a family and educator curriculum that I highly recommend. Each lesson has a game that matches with it and my 5th graders loved them. This program would work for other grade levels, but I especially like that the lessons opened up conversations about social emotional learning that went beyond online topics.
Digital Escape Rooms
After a training by my district I began to explore the world of digital escape rooms. I found it to be a rewarding way to get students to have voice and choice in their learning. There are many digital escape rooms already created, but I had fun making ones that would fit with my community and student need. My students collected their earned badges in a google slide deck that they decorated like a trophy case. This was a fun and motivating way to show learning and celebrate achievements. I will add more to the linked site as the summer unfolds, but please enjoy the first one to escape from 5th grade.
Morning Meetings
We had a morning meeting everyday during distance learning and I wanted to share some things that worked. At the beginning I shared a slide with the structure of the meeting and estimated times we would spend on each sections. I kept the structure the same to allow for predictability and routine. I saved extra time at the end for questions and things that came up during the meeting.
Greeting:
This was so important as students were not seeing each other with the distance learning. I greeted students by name as they joined the meeting and encouraged them to do the same. At first I listed student names on the google slide so that they would know what order to go in. As we got more comfortable I let students call on each other to greet them, but kept a sentence frame visible so that they could fall back to the predictable structure if needed.
Share:
Students always want to share and this was my favorite part of the meeting. If we had a longer activity planned I could have them share in answer garden, padlet, or in the chat section of our meeting. Offering multiple ways to share depending on the day allowed for more voices to be heard. My shy students loved being able to reflect on what they wanted to share in the padlet or answer garden. My more outspoken students loved to be able to have the floor for a while and talk. Share became a fun way to add variety in a safe way that kept students connected and aware that they were not alone in their feelings.
Activity:
The activities were the most looked forward to time for my students. They love a good game and I wanted to share some that worked really well in the digital landscape. kahoot was a favorite in the classroom and being able to do it from a distance was really fun. I loved hearing student giggles, jokes, and chatter as we played. The freedom to either make one or search for a premade kahoot made my life much easier. We also adapted games that had been played in the classroom to the digital space. Alibi is a fun game where students try to figure out who the gremlin is. The detective asks students for their alibi proving they could not have caused the mischief. The second time that the detective asks the students only the gremlin changes their answer. I loved this game because it got students to listen carefully to each other and be precise with their language.
We played a version of mafia where the Spymaster was trying to find spies from the other side. This fit really well with our learning about the American Revolution. We did some pictionary, and even had students paste images instead of having to draw everything. It really got their critical thinking skills going. charades was a bit challenging but fun and lots of laughs. My personal favorite was taking students on virtual field trips. The best one was Buckingham Palace and I highly recommend it to anyone that has even been there because the zoom feature is breathtaking. My students gasped as we zoomed in to see the angels etched in the dome. Morning Message:
This proved to be a meaningful way to share some social emotional mini lessons. I tried to have a short video to hook the students and show the application or real world need of the skill targeted. Some of my favorites with the targeted skills are listed below.
- Look for ways to help yourself: stuck on an escalator
- growth mindset:Practice drawing
- Never give up: octopus obstacle course
- It's ok to be grumpy: grumpy cat roomba ride
Share what you are reading and read alouds
On our google classroom I had an assignment each week to share what you are reading. I asked students to share if they liked it and what someone might enjoy about the book. It was fun for me to see what they were reading and fun to see students commenting back and forth about books. The best recommendations for books usually comes from friends and I was happy to keep this going online.
I've started making videos for book recommendations on my you tube channel ranging from 5th grade level to adult. I love watching recommendation videos on you tube and wanted to add some overlooked books there.
In my classroom read alouds are a very important part of each day and I wanted to continue this so I recorded my read alouds and if you want to check them out they are on my you tube channel.
Things I learned during distance learning
I knew that small group time was important before distance learning, but it became a precious tool during distance learning. I was able to have my undivided attention on 4 students during these times and I loved being able to adapt each group to what they needed in that moment. One day all the group members seemed to really need have some social time and we just shared our pets. It was magical and exactly what they needed. We did eventually get into our math for the day, but I couldn't help but think how lucky we were to have the technology to be able to just be there for each other and the flexibility to see what these children needed.
I found myself more open to giving students a choice in how they were going to show learning. This was a powerful takeaway that opened my mind to ways to include this when we are back in the classroom. For example, I assigned several articles in Newsela and had students choose which they wanted to read. My targeted skill could be met with any other the articles and offering choice was a method to engage them in their learning. Newsela offers a wide range of articles about multiple perspectives during the American Revolution and it was a powerful way to have students choose each week if they wanted to read about the African American soldier's perspective, women's perspective, enslaved person's perspective, or Native American perspective. We would discuss all the articles in small group and through letting go a bit I found students more passionate about sharing what they learned.
I realized in a more real way how important equity is. Being able to have a glimpse into what students are facing as challenges to learning was a gift. I look forward to working with my team to be an advocate for more equitable practices in my classroom and beyond.
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