I hope that you are sheltering in place and maintaining social distancing and doing all the things that are being asked of us right now during this unprecedented pandemic.
And speaking of doing all the things — you’re probably also planning and implementing distance learning on top of everything else going on in our world and in our own families.
I am working on a post about maintaining your balance and sanity while doing all the distance learning work, but I have some new resources to share. So I decided that this post needs to be shared first!
Here we go with part 4. If you missed my earlier posts about free resources, see part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE, and part 3 HERE.
Maintaining contact with students and families
*Use Google Voice to make phone calls if you prefer to not share your phone number.
*Use Padlet for all kinds of interactions with your students. This is an example Padlet that I will be sharing with my class next week, as a “status of the class” for what they are reading independently. (Let me know if you want more directions for how to set up a Padlet wall.)
*Use Google forms to check in with your students. I am sending a different form, complete with bitmojis, every couple of days. I do change the questions but I try to keep it informal. Here’s a copy of one of my latest check-ins.
*Use Google Meet to set “appointment times” with individual students or with small groups. You could also use it for your whole class. I know that a lot of people are using Zoom for this, but I’m a little wary of using Zoom with students. (Although I love it for adult meetings.) Zoom is not “approved” by my school district because the free version is not FERPA/COPPA compliant. I don’t mean to deter you from using it if you love it. Use whatever works best for you!
*To learn to use the free version of Zoom, here is a great YouTube tutorial.
*To help keep a Zoom meeting with your students as private as possible, here is a resource for changing the privacy settings in Zoom.
*If you would like to share an emotional check-in calendar with your students, there are new versions HERE.
*HERE is a great resource for seeing how to set up weekly assignments and check-ins using Google slides.
Resources for all subject areas
*Explore at Home – this is a great site with resources organized by category.
Reading resources
*Resources from Teachers College Reading & Writing Project – there are videos of authors reading books along with lists of great books for kids of different ages
*Time for Kids‘ digital library is now free for the remainder of the school year!
Writing resources
*I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this before, but encourage your students to write good, old-fashioned letters or notes to people. Elderly family members or friends would especially appreciate hearing from them while we are all isolated from each other right now. Of course, writing letters to anyone would be a great use of writing skills. Of course, Face Timing with grandparents or other elderly relatives would also be especially appreciated right now.
*If you want a great resource for vocabulary or spelling study, Vocabulary Spelling City is free for the rest of the year with the code VSCFree90.
Math resources
*Here is a great resource for teachers and families that is FREE until March 31! Download this ebook of math games that uses only a deck of cards from Math Geek Mama.
Content area resources
*Here is a great choice board sample for using the Nearpod resource.
Resources to share with parents
*Here is a great list of resources for parents from Read-Write-Think website
*If your parents are confused about Google Classroom, here is a quick tutorial you can send to them.
*Here is a great resource from Khan Academy, showing sample home learning schedules for kids of different ages, along with links to their resources.
Just for fun
*Art Date with Ms. Kate lessons on YouTube
*Art at Home – Google slides with suggested art activities to do at home.
*Tell your students to wash their hands while reciting the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution! They can learn it HERE with Schoolhouse Rock on YouTube.
*They can also learn to wash their hands with Jimmy Fallon’s song for his two adorable daughters.
*Virtual field trips for American history learning
*More virtual field trip ideas!
~Tour the Known Universe with the American Museum of Natural History
~Nine Planets solar system tour
~tour of Mt. Everest
~tour the Smithsonian Museum
~tour the Egyptian Pyramids
~tour the Great Wall of China
~tour the National Aquarium
~tour the world on with Scholastic Global Trek
*This calendar of virtual field trips for families looks useful
*It might be a great time for students to learn to play chess! This site will show them how.
That’s it for now! Take care of yourself, wash your hands, get plenty of rest, and go easy on yourself. These are difficult days and you are doing a great job.