We are doing School at Home, with K-8 teachers planning and preparing lessons in a daily, checklist format. High school classes are using Google Classroom. Today a parent told me in an email, “There were tears today, missing school and friends!” I miss my students, too! Here are a few things that might help with that:
- I made a short video of our two very large stuffed animals “talking” to my class and saying they missed them. I uploaded this in a Google Photos album and shared it with the parents via the SIS. (I had to scan papers at school, so took time to make the video.)
- I recorded myself reading stories to my class, so they could have a little sense of “normalcy.” They could see and hear their teacher reading, and hear some little comments or stories that I added. I uploaded these and shared the links in my assignment page.
- We’ve had a lot of email communications, and I’ve tried to add little notes to my students in the parent emails. One student has recorded two brief videos of herself talking to me.
- A parent told me that her son likes the little comments that I’ve added in the assignments – He “likes the little notes and things you wrote in between the assignments, the things that sound like Miss Birt.”
- Another teacher told me that the elementary teachers at her school are doing short Zoom meetings with any of the class who can attend, and that is a favorite time of the day for many students. They do them after 3:20 pm when the older students are likely to be finished with their online work.
