Thanks to our efforts to reduce the effects of COVID-19, my students may have the opportunity to reconnect with family, enjoy more unstructured and imaginative playtime, and explore their interests more fully. But being with children all day long is not an easy job. Our established schedules are essential for helping kids to self-regulate, anticipate and plan for activities, and feel safe as they adjust to unanticipated changes, so the sooner a dependable routine is put into place at home, the better. And, admittedly, parents and caregivers are going to need some ten or fifteen-minute blocks of "free" time as they find ways to help their young learners fill their days away from the routine of school.
I've used Symbaloo to collect and sort digital content for my students for several years now, and have appreciated all of the webmixes that have been shared by others that have made it possible for me to NOT have to recreate the wheel while discovering wonderful resources such as Art Hub for Kids, Cosmic Kids Yoga, and Sag-Aftra Foundation's Storyline Online (they have a free app!) at the same time.
If you're wanting to offer families and students some additional content to help them get through their days off from school, feel free to explore Symbaloo by signing up for a free basic account, and use the search function to find webmixes like mine:
Yoga webmix here.
Story Time webmix here.
... and How to Draw webmix found here.
What kinds of activities might families want to plan for as they work with their children at home? Creating a schedule, for one, assigning blocks of time for meal preparation, chores, playtime with siblings, storytime, exercise and/or fresh air opportunities, quiet time (away from siblings), writing and drawing, exploring math concepts (not everything has to be a math worksheet, by the way), creative expression/art, music and movement, and clean up. Plan it, schedule it, follow it every day.
Families who have heavily relied upon schools to provide their children with opportunities to use markers, scissors, paint, and other tools, may now find themselves in need of quick tutorials on how to set up a writing or art station at home. Before exploring inspiration boards on Pinterest, these parents should know that they will want to supervise their children when they allow them to use scissors and tools with ink at home: no leaving cutting tools, markers, pens or paint down and within easy reach until a routine regarding their use is well established. After each day's clean up, these tools should be collected and safely stored by the adult, unless they'd like to discover that their walls, furniture, clothes, and even pets have undergone a colorful and choppy transformation.
What do children love to use?
Colored pencils
Markers
Stamps
Paint, paintbrushes (but Q-tips and other objects used for stamps are fun too!)
Pens
Crayons
Paper: construction; writing; painting; old magazines and newspapers; even junk mail!
Play Doh (here's a link to a make-at-home version from This Tiny Blue House)
Rulers, yardsticks, tracing stencils
Cookie cutters (for dough and for tracing)
Parents can round these items up, sort them and store them in tubs, containers, or clear baggies and put them near the area where they will be used most often, making sure that their children sort them into their proper containers at the end of each day. Then the adults can disinfect the items and let them sit overnight up and out of reach. Toys, books and puzzles can also benefit from a good sorting and cleaning after extended and repeated use, which children can easily do with guidance and supervision. When these items are ready for some disinfectant, parents can utilize a digital resource such as yoga, a directed drawing activity, or storytime video in webmixes like those above to engage children, while they clean doorknob germs and wipe down surfaces to help maintain a healthy living space.
Or use the bathroom, you know, like teachers do.
*****
Edited to add on April 13, 2020:
Hello Kelsey, I'm glad you were able to find something useful during your visit to my blog. I've taught kindergarten for twenty-plus years now, and have found that the two constants in education (when we consider things such as instructional styles, tips and tricks, technology adoption and effective use, or even our current COVID19 crisis, etc.) are change and inequality. The needs and strengths of students, teachers and communities differ in the here and now, AND they evolve over time. For educators like me who have taught in culturally diverse parts of our country, that change is marked not only with each successive school year but during each relocation to a new neighborhood, town or state. In addition to developing well-rounded, inclusive pedagogy, I'd have to say that two of the most necessary skills that effective educators must develop are 1) the ability to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and 2) the ability to quickly filter through of all of the content that is tossed into their faces. Be able to make the most out of what you have, and learn to sort through the sea of salesmanship so that you are putting the best resources available into the hands of your students. Create, and appreciate NOT having to recreate the wheel when you encounter a quality tool.
When I first began teaching, I knew I could ask the reading resource teachers, speech and language interventionists, bi-lingual liaisons, cafeteria staff, OT/PT staff, the school nurse, neighborhood businesses, and my grade-level and building colleagues for help. Some of my colleagues taught in isolation, regularly closing their doors to everyone but students. Moving from state to state, it became clear that the personalities and cultures of the schools in which I taught each shared some stereotypes, while still remaining unique from one another. And certainly, the financial disparities that existed between schools and districts within not only regions or individual states in this country, but within each of the towns that I moved to and taught in, have remained. Now I PLC, which in a nutshell, is meant to prevent me and my immediate grade level team from having to pick up a phone, or walk down the hallways, possibly encountering more closed than open doors, as we search for ways to improve our instruction: everyone is "available" to us as we interpret data to assess student need in order to fine-tune and target our instruction. But I'll tell you something: while "loner" teachers might be sitting in the same room as the rest of their team, that doesn't mean they're contributing any more to the common good than they would have been if they had been allowed to remain behind their closed classroom doors. And if only one specialist is shared amongst more than one school, immediate help or input isn't available when it's most needed or most convenient.
I truly believe that educators (and consequently their students) benefit when they purposely grow their PLN, seeking out inspiration and advice from others not only in their building, district, or even state, but from across the nation, multiple professions, and even the world. Twenty-some years ago, I assumed I'd experience a gradual, measured evolution of my pedagogy, using the building blocks of inservices, book studies, classroom experiences, an over-reliance upon local resources and possibly occasional holiday travel to widen my view. I never would have imagined that I would be able to learn from and bounce ideas off of teachers and other experts around the world in real-time. I never imagined hosting a parent-teacher conference with a mother sitting at my reading table and a father sitting in an Army tent overseas. I am thrilled that I could search for and find content such as the yoga, art and storytime videos that I've compiled into the webmixes written about in this blogpost, and that a platform such as Symbaloo exists to support access to them.
While I remain a caring, invested, purposeful teacher and learner, the resources that are now available to me (which I credit mostly to advances in technology) make it possible for the walls of my classroom to expand as I cherry-pick from a global range of fellow sharers. At this point (but who knows what tomorrow's news cycle may bring) there is no reason for me to believe that my pedagogy won't continue to evolve at a rate that matches the needs of today's learners.
Hello Ms Sommerville,
ReplyDeleteI am a senior at ASU working on a course activity on Standards of Professional Learning and came across your blog. Specifically, I am looking deeper into the resources standard and seeing how that looks for me as a future educator. I read this post you wrote providing your knowledge and resources to other educators and parents during this hard time we are living through due to COVID19. Based on what I have learned during this lesson this exemplifies a high standard of resources. I have found so many resources on using different resources throughout this lesson. I read that you have been in education for a long time, have the resources that have changed over time effected the way you teach?
Thank you,
Kelsey