School and the City

We're missing out on one of the most special times of the year for students... the end of the year, which usually includes field day and an end of year party! Our administration encouraged us to start thinking about how to host a virtual celebration for students. We'll be having our virtual party on the last day of school. Here's the plan... My team and I decided to create a little "party in a bag." You see, I'll be heading into my classroom in a few days to pack up for the summer. That will include bagging up students' belongings for them to come and pick up. The "party in a bag" will go INSIDE the bag of students' belongings, which they will pick up during the last week of school. My class is going to have a virtual luau. I made this decision based on what I could find on Amazon. I needed stuff that was cheap and could be shipped quickly since I don't have much time to prepare. What's in the bag? Ins...

Y'all know how much a love a good choice board. (Not familiar? Read all about it here .) I'm using choice boards while teaching remotely, too! While we teach remotely, it's even harder than it is in the classroom to empower students with choice and voice while also providing relevant, engaging, and rigorous activities. However, my choice boards are designed to be completed independently. In the classroom, choice board time is typically reserved for early finishers. But now, I'm assigning students the task of choosing an activity from the choice board to complete as the assignment for the day. This won't work for every day, of course, but I'm attempting to incorporate it at least once a week as the day's "assignment." It's also a "May Do" option for students to choose to work on! magnets choice board Here's how I'm Getting My Choice Boards to Students: First, I edit the choice board to...

I've already shared 5 Ideas for Distance Learning , but I thought we'd look a little deeper into one topic today: recording video minilessons to send your students during this time of remote learning. What a crazy time this is. We're all doing our best and we all have different expectations, but one thing most of us have in common is that we have become overnight YouTubers - ha! We've had to learn a lot of new skills very quickly, without any advance notice. Creating videos for students is NOT easy, especially without experience and materials. I’m recording SUPER short videos to post for my kids daily. I want them to “see” me every day. When I surveyed students and parents, they said the videos were helpful, so I’m trying to keep it up. Here are a few things I've learned so far: One of the biggest struggles is to teach math remotely... without manipulatives. Did you know about Glencoe’s Virtual Manipulatives? This FREE website is a virtu...