Covid-19: Part 3 of 3

As I have chatted with people the last couple of weeks they are blown away that I am teaching my kindergarten students online. I miss my students dearly, but I am also SO proud of how much they are still learning online.

Each morning we have a live Google Meet morning meeting from 9-9:30am. Here is what our morning meeting routine looks like each day:

Each week during morning we assign jobs for the students to take responsibility with. Here is a list of their jobs for each week: 

Also, each Friday we have a "Fun Friday" morning meeting. So far our "Fun Friday" meetings have been: show-and-tell, crazy hair day, show your pet day, and favorite Halloween costume.

We love this time together!! Then after we have our morning meeting I stay on to teach a live small group with 2-4 children for about 30 minutes. Then my assistant comes on and teaches a small group of 3 children. For small group teaching I am still using Google Meet. I am also using a free platform called Explain Everything. With Google Meet I am able to share my screen so I just share with the kids my Explain Everything tab. With this platform I am able to put books for the students to read aloud to me and each other and math practice activities. I am so proud of all they are doing. 

Each week in Kindergarten we are having a "theme of the week". Each day we talk about the theme in our morning meeting. We also post optional activities each day to go along with the theme. Our themes so far have been: spring, butterflies, Easter, frog, and Earth Day. 

Each day after morning meeting and small groups students work on their learning for the day. We are using Google Classroom to publish assignments each day. Assignments are broken down by subject: phonics, reading, writing, math, optional special class assignments, and optional weekly theme activities. For each subject there is a typically a pre-recorded video by one of the kindergarten teachers and then an assignment for them to do at home and post on seesaw. We are then checking seesaw and giving feedback each day. 

Here is an example of one of our daily lesson plans: 

I am so incredibly proud of each one of my students! I feel so fortunate that we have the technology that we do to get to see our students each day. It makes my teacher heart so happy to see that even though we are not together in the classroom that they are all still learning and growing each day. I cannot wait till this summer when I can see them again.