Marion (from a burb in NY)
Based on my experience with a K and 4th grader who go to one of our community’s four elementary schools, our district has done an amazing job, seemingly overnight, to get remote learning resources together and out to families. Just a couple of days after schools closed last week, we began getting daily emails (sometimes an overwhelming number of them) from the district and my kids’ teachers. Those emails include Google Classroom links to semi-structured lessons and access to handouts, videos, and other resources needed to carry them out. Lessons also draw from a list of activity suggestions that the district provided, tagged by grade band and domain.
Math and Reading/Writing activities are daily blocks, with Science, Social Studies, Art, PE, and Music activities included on some days. The plans are not associated with a schedule (like Math at 9am, Science at 1pm...), but collectively they’re designed to add up to about 2-3 hours of activities. Since the district’s remote learning launch last Wednesday (after 2 days of DIY homeschooling), my focus has been to guide my kids through the day’s “required” activities, and supplement them with additional fun, sneaky-learning activities that elevate the ones the school recommends, extend them, and/or bring my kids together. I’ve already found that some of the activities can last a forgettable 5 minutes, (like “go outside and write about something you see”), or with some planning can take fun, challenging turns that get my kids thinking deeper and for longer.
I’ll share some examples from the home front in the coming days. In the meantime, I’d love to hear how others who are local feel about how our district is doing in terms of supporting families, and what additional supports you wish were available. And I’d love to know more about how our district is approaching this situation differently from other districts near and far.
Deb (from a town in Vermont)
Our district is currently engaged in “maintenance of learning.” This means that we are trying to avoid the “slide” that we typically think of happening over the summer months. We are keeping up the learning that has already occurred, reviewing and keeping kids engaged. As such, teachers have provided some materials and menus of options. The menu is organized by subject area, with options for the various ways to approach those subjects. For example, my 2nd grader’s menu for literacy includes things like videos of the librarian reading books to kids, independent student reading, writing in journals, trick word sheets, and writing prompts. The advice is to try to check each box within a week’s time. All of this is explicitly optional so there are a wide range of ways that families are staying engaged in learning during this period. And for me, I’m taking advantage of this time to connect with my kids in a way that I typically struggle to fit in, giving them focused attention on their interests and supporting their approaches to learning (curiosity, persistence, collaboration skills, etc.). Similarly, I am very interested in keeping it light and fun, using more games and projects that they initiate, and finding and fostering the learning opportunities within them.
I’ll share examples of the games, resources, and projects we end up trying, discuss whether they were quick or sustained the kids’ interests, and also describe the total failures, including the inevitable frustrations we all will have in trying new things.
And with all of this, we'll try and keep our senses of humor as well!
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