If you’re required to keep your students “socially distanced,” you know that recess presents particular challenges! Our usual team games are not options so I have been thinking of other fun things we can do to keep recess active and fun, but safe.

Here are six ideas:

1 – noodle tag – use a pool noodle as a tagging device for any kind of tag game!

2 – relay races of various types, as long as kids don’t tag each others’ hands and stay distanced while waiting their turn

3 – another fun relay race option is the egg and spoon relay

4 – cornhole is always fun!

5 – give everyone an inexpensive jump rope to keep at school and use at recess

6 – sidewalk chalk for drawing or for drawing a hopscotch board

Indoor recess will also be a challenge since our usual board games will not be an option.

Here are seven ideas:

1 – Go Noodle is always a great option!

2 – Simon Says (or change the name to something else)

Other games (which aren’t as physically active):

3 – I don’t know the name of this game (you could call it whatever you want), but it’s a fun one: the goal is to count to five. One student stands up and says “one,” then another student stands up and says “two,” and so on, up to “five.” BUT – if two students stand up at the same time and say a number, then both of them are out. Keep going until you have a winner (or two).

4 – guess the word – have one student stand up at the front of the room with their back to the board. Write a word on the board (it can be anything but you might want to use a content area word). Then students have to give clues so that the student guessing can figure out the word.

5 – play a version of “hangman” with a word or phrase, but please don’t call it “hangman.” That whole idea is often triggering or traumatic for students and adults. Instead, draw something like a snowman melting (erase part of the snowman for every wrong answer) or a disappearing shape (where you erase part of the shape for every wrong answer).

6 – play math games like “I Am the Greatest.” Have students draw three (or more) blank spaces on paper or a whiteboard. Use a deck of cards or a die to call out numbers. Students place the number in one of their blanks. Whoever builds the greatest number wins a point for that round. Play as many rounds as you want! This is great for reviewing place value.

7 – another fun math game is to draw four cards from a deck and call out the numbers. Students create two two-digit numbers and add them (or multiply them). Whoever has the highest number wins a point for the round. You could also switch it up to subtract the numbers and the winner gets a point for the smallest number.

Please share your ideas for socially distanced recess!

My school district has gone from planning for hybrid learning four days a week (with students in cohorts) to jumping right into in-person learning five days a week (with an option for families to remain in remote learning). All in the span of six days.

Here’s how I’m feeling:

And this:

Anyone else?!

We’re currently waiting for more details about when this big change will actually begin. With so much out of my control right now (which doesn’t feel good to a control freak like me!), I’m looking for the best ideas I can find to help navigate yet another big change in this challenging year. Here’s what I’ve found.

Note to self: nothing is going to be perfect, we’re all just doing our best & making the best of our situation.

*Continue using your online learning platform and digital assignments. While my in-person students may be looking forward to using paper and being on screens less, it is not a good use of my time to create two different forms of the same assignment.

*Continue using tools where students can collaborate and see each other’s responses. Some tools we’ve used effectively include Google Slides (where students add their own slide to a class presentation), Padlet, PearDeck, and FlipGrid.

*Intentionally plan to slow down & not try to cover as much curriculum as we would in a “normal” year. It’s just not realistic or sustainable. Focus on the most important topics and standards. Choose the highest-quality assignments you can find and don’t worry about assigning three tasks when one assignment will do.

*Along those same lines, be realistic about how long it might take to conference with students or to meet with small groups.

*Continue using breakout rooms to allow your in-person students to talk and collaborate with remote students. This helps to keep everyone connected.

*Continue those morning meetings or class circles to maintain your classroom community. (And if you haven’t started implementing this powerful strategy, it’s never too late to introduce this routine!) Here’s a link to my post about class circles.

*Continue a focus on social-emotional learning. Teach kids to check in with themselves and their feelings and think about what they might need. Incorporate some time for deep breathing. Share jokes or funny videos. Allow everyone to respond to fun questions. Use “would you rather?” questions. Play games together. Here is a post on social-emotional learning, building classroom community when some students are in remote learning, and games for Zoom or Google Meet.

*Play with the technology you’ll be using before your first blended class lesson. Will you be using another device? Are you going to project the lesson on your interactive whiteboard or will you project the screen with your remote students’ faces or avatars? Will you use headphones or earbuds so your remote students can chat with you privately when needed? Try everything out in advance.

*Plan intentional times AWAY from screens. Lunch and recess should be times to view or listen to something fun, play outside and get some fresh air. Students who are remote should be encouraged to eat and play outside with no devices at all. Some fun options for science include Tinkercast or the Brains On! podcast. Some fun options for social studies include the history podcast Forever Ago and The Past and the Curious (another history podcast).

Have kids read REAL books (not just books or articles online) and practice handwriting, cursive practice, or any other writing assignment on paper instead of typing all the time.

Catlin Tucker’s online wellness choice boards (for both students AND teachers) include lots of other great ideas!

*Include as many hands-on science experiments as possible. Your remote students can also participate if you let them know in advance what materials they need.

*Flip some lessons by having students watch video instruction during the asynchronous time and then use your time together for them to collaborate for group discussions or practice math concepts with you there to guide the practice. This is similar to the idea of having students read an assignment independently for a book group and then come together for a discussion of the reading. Some good tools for this are EdPuzzle and Actively Learn.

*Take the learning outside as much as possible. While your remote students may not be able to do that from their homes (so the blended instructional time may have to continue in the classroom), you can take some of your in-person asynchronous time outside. Ask students to bring beach towels or blankets (and try to provide something to sit on for those who cannot bring something from home). Allow students to set up an outdoor spot for reading or math practice on a whiteboard or some kind of project work for social studies or science. Fresh air and a change of location are good for everyone.

*Recognize that just because your class has been “together” in a remote setting, this new learning environment is totally different! While you will have plenty of health and safety protocols to review with students, you might also need to revisit expectations for how we do things in a classroom! Taking some time to do some of what might seem to be beginning of the year activities will be good for getting everyone acclimated to being back in school and in a classroom setting again.

*Michael Linsin of Smart Classroom Management has some great tips for establishing rapport with your students while wearing a face mask! One suggestion is to lock in eye contact with students, THEN smile. He also suggests using air bumps (other non-physical gestures would work too), using your hands as you communicate, and limiting your talking by one-third to one-half. The link to his full post is HERE.

*And finally, continue to use frequent check-ins with your students about what is working well for them and what is not working so well. Google forms work especially well for these check-ins.

If you have been teaching in-person and online, what tips have been working for you? Please share!

It’s official: my school district will be opening soon in a hybrid learning model. For my school, that will mean that we teach the cohort of students who are back for in-person learning (the “roomies”) in the morning while teaching those same lessons to the remote students (the “zoomies”) in the afternoon.

Hybrid learning is going to be one more huge challenge in an already challenging year. To help ease my stress by planning for it, I’ve been gathering tips and suggestions.

I know that many of you have been teaching in a hybrid learning model for months now, and we could all benefit from hearing about your experiences! Please email me or comment below with YOUR tips and tricks. I for one need all the help I can get!

*Assign a peer learning buddy to every student. My in-person students will be part of two separate cohorts. Cohort A will attend school on Monday and Tuesday and do remote learning for the remainder of the week. Cohort B will attend school on Thursday and Friday but will be remote on Monday through Wednesday. A few of my students will be remote every day. Since everyone is going to be remote for at least part of the time, and since my time will be stretched even thinner than it already is, I am going to need my students to help each other more than ever.

Each student will have a buddy that is on the opposite rotation schedule. Any time they have questions about an assignment or just need help with something, I am training them to go to their buddy first. (This is a version of “ask three before me” that many teachers use in the classroom.) It’s important when assigning the buddies that you pair kids with someone with whom they feel comfortable. Otherwise, they might not want to ask that person for help, even when they need it.

For those teaching in a blended model (with students both in-person and remote at the same time), this would work for helping the remote students to be able to ask questions of their buddy or for their buddy to ask the teacher to help the remote student.

*Keep group work virtual. One thing that is stressing me out is how to continue doing small group instruction and allowing students to talk to each other in small groups. I’ve decided to just keep it virtual. The roomies and the zoomies would log in to Google Meet or Zoom as they usually do. Then I can meet with them at the same time. If I want more small groups, I would simply send them to breakout rooms. This may somewhat defeat the purpose of in-person learning, but we can’t have everything.

*Keeping the same assignments for both remote and in-person students and providing those assignments on the same learning platform that we’ve been using. There is no sense in creating multiple assignments and I want to handle as little paper as possible.

*Keeping some flipped classroom techniques in mind, I’m also thinking about how to maximize the “teacher time”. By that, I mean that I want my students to do things that don’t require my presence (such as watching a video or reading independently) while saving the activities that need me or need other students (such as solving math problems, giving feedback on writing assignments, or having a discussion about the reading) for “teacher time.”

Besides watching videos during the asynchronous time, I’m also thinking about using a reading text or website for students to explore. Then they can add their thinking to a tool like Padlet or a Google doc. When we are together as a class, we can discuss the work they did in the asynchronous time.

Some great tools for flipped classroom time are EdPuzzle and Actively Learn.

*Give myself grace. Many things will go wrong or just not be as effective as I had hoped. For those situations, I’m going to call them “learning experiences” and figure out how to do better. But I am not going to beat myself up over them because this is an entirely new world for all of us.

*Building community in this hybrid model will be a priority. We will continue having a daily class meeting with both the “roomies” and the “zoomies” participate together. We will continue to have our daily class circles and occasionally play games together. I’m going to have each cohort develop their own class norms together. I am currently collecting ideas for maximizing ways to have my cohort “zoomies” talk and interact with each other in a socially distanced way. (That will be the subject of a future post, so stay tuned!)

*I will continue to do regular Google forms check-ins where I ask students questions about our classroom structures and activities and get their feedback. These have been enormously helpful to me during remote learning since I can make adjustments based on student feedback. This builds trust in my students when they see that I adjust to meet their needs.

*Developing systems and routines for getting stuff done is always important, but never more so than when I’m trying to juggle so many different tasks and schedules. I do this by making detailed “things to do” lists for each day. It seems a little obsessive (okay, maybe it is), but it helps me keep all the details of all the things I need to do in some sort of order. Once I get into more of a routine, it isn’t necessary to list every little thing but it helps me keep it all straight in the beginning. Plus, there is nothing that makes me feel more productive than checking stuff off my list!

*Plan for breaks. Some of the most important tasks I add to those to-do lists are break times. Time to take a break from the computer and eat lunch, time to take a brief walk outside (or around the school), time to chat and reconnect with school friends.

*Don’t grade everything. I know that goes against what we feel like we should be doing as teachers. But think about it — we have to set limits for what we can do in this highly unusual teaching situation. Decide what you will grade and what you will check off for completion. Or select a few parts of the assignment that you look at more closely and let the rest go. Using tools like Google Forms with multiple choice answers also helps with grading.

*Finally — take care of YOU. No one else is going to do it. You have to think about what you need to replenish your energy and then give yourself time and permission to do that. Here are some ideas:

~set boundaries for when you will check and respond to email
~set boundaries for how long you will work on grading. Grading is just like laundry – you’re never really caught up. So set a goal for how long you will grade student work or how many assignments you will grade in a day. Then stick to that.
~get some exercise every day. Not necessarily by going to the gym, but by getting some movement that makes you feel better.
~drink enough water. A good goal is half your bodyweight in ounces of water daily.
~get enough sleep.
~take breaks whenever you can during the day.
~meditate or just sit in silence for a few minutes every day.
~ask for some help. Get help at home and divide up the workload at school. Asking for help is never a sign of weakness – it’s a sign of strength that you know what you need and you are willing to ask for it.

What tips can you share with all of us?

February is Black History Month. But I believe that Black history is American history and thus should be taught all year long, just as we teach other topics of history. But, until that happens, I do think it’s good to have a specific time set aside to focus on Black history and the contributions of Black people. You can find more of my suggested resources for teaching Black history HERE.

In this post, I’m sharing some of my favorite picture books to share with kids in honor of Black History Month but they’re also great books to share with students any time of the year!

*28 Days: Moments in Black History that Changed the World by Charles R. Smith, Jr. This book shares people and events that you may not know about but which were pivotal in history. These are just quick snippets, so the book is perfect for sharing one or two per day.

*A Child’s Introduction to African American History: The People, Experiences, and Events that Shaped Our Country by Jabari Asim. This book is so comprehensive – starting with the slave trade and going all the way up to our present time and the Black Lives Matter movement. This is another book that is great for sharing a few facts per day.

*Freedom Ship by Doreen Rappaport. I love this historical fiction story which is based on the true story of Robert Smalls and his commandeering a ship during the Civil War and helping enslaved people escape to freedom. Another great book about this story is Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls by Louise Meriwether.

*Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine may be one of my favorite stories ever. This book tells the story of Henry “Box” Brown and his ingenious escape from slavery. This is a great book for showing the sadness and desperation of families being separated during slavery and how enslaved people did not just accept their situation. This is a great book to lead to more learning and discussion about the Underground Railroad. If you want some suggestions for doing an interactive read aloud with this book, check out my TPT store!

*A book that is new to me but which I already love – Lizzie Demands a Seat! by Beth Anderson. Many of us know the story of Rosa Parks, but not many have heard of Elizabeth “Lizzie” Jennings, a Black schoolteacher who fought for equal rights on public transportation. This is an inspiring story!

*Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. This is another little-known story about Ona Judge, who was enslaved by George and Martha Washington. This book is also good for having a discussion about how many of our nation’s Founding Fathers were also enslavers (proving that history is never “black and white” in terms of anyone or any nation being perfect).

*Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey is a great book for learning more about the period of segregation. You may have seen the movie The Green Book and this is about the same book and time period. A new book that tells even more about this history is Opening the Road: Victor Hugo Green and his Green Book by Keila V. Dawson.

*Speaking of great movies, you may have seen Hidden Figures a few years ago. Hidden Figures: the True Story of Four Black Women & the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly tells the story of the three women portrayed in the movie along with another woman (Christine Darden). You can learn even more about Katherine Johnson with the book Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker.

*I love the book Freedom on the Menu: the Greensboro Sit-ins by Carole Boston Weatherford. This book tells the story of four courageous college students at North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and how they staged a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960.

*Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robins is a great book for showing students that children can make a difference in a protest movement as well. A similar title is The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist by Cynthia Levinson.

*If you want to teach your students about other icons of the Civil Rights Movement, the story of John Lewis is a good place to start. Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis by Jabari Asim tells the story of John Lewis as a child and is a relatable, delightful story of his childhood.

*The Teachers March! How Selma’s Teachers Changed History by Sandra Neil Wallace is another new title to me. It tells the story of a Black principal who mobilizes Black teachers to march on behalf of voting rights in 1965. I love books like this (and those about children in the Civil Rights movement) because it shows students how ordinary people stood up for what was right and made a difference.

*Learning about Ruby Bridges, the first-grader who integrated an all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana is a must for students. I have used the book The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles for many years and students always love this story. This book is best for younger students, but I also love Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges which contains primary source photos and interviews of the time period.

*Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of another lesser-known Civil Rights pioneer.

*Two of my favorite fiction picture books that represent the era of segregation are White Socks Only by Evelyn Coleman and The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson.

I hope that you and your students enjoy some of these titles any time of the year, not just during Black History Month!