Remote Learning Part 1

Remote learning is over for now, thank goodness. We have been doing remote learning since March 20. We are experts at google classroom, zoom meetings, and google meets. It's been rough, but we did it!

This post is long and detailed about what each kid had to do everyday for school. It was intense. The kids did wonderfully. Their teachers are amazing! They worked around the clock to learn all the new technology, meeting with students individually. I received personal phone calls from them asking what they could do to help and also talking to my kids. I am so grateful for the teachers they had this year.

All three kids participated in remote learning. Each grade/teacher did something different. What they all had to do was answer and attendance question by noon, read for thirty minutes a day, and I-ready (an assessment program that helped determine where they were in math and reading).

Third Grade: Cosette's assignments were what she was doing in school. She completed two huge projects. A persuasive writing project on China. She wrote a brocher trying to persuade people to visit China. Then an informative brocher on Mexico. She also had a book report she had to complete every week. There were week long scince projects, typing projects with her other daily assignments. She had about eight assignments everyday. If she did not finish one, her teacher sent me an email reminding me.

First Grade: Henry had the most work starting out. First Grade quickly got in a groove and the four teachers distributed the work among themselves. In the end his schedule was as follows M-TH: Morning Meeting, Math, Reading, Writing, OG, Social Studies and or Science. On Fridays it was a less and he had to compete an assignment in I-Ready. He wrote two books on Snakes. One was non fiction, and the other was fiction. He also completed a opinion book. He did really well. His teacher chooses one student a week as the star student. Henry received star student three times during quarantine. I am so proud of him! He worked really hard. Some days were easier than other. There were a lot of hard days. He improved a lot wit his reading and writing. His teacher is the best! She would leave comments on his work saying, "You are a great mathematician. Your work shows me you really understood the problem". He received a lot of positive feed back. He also had small reading groups on Friday with his teacher. They would do a google meet and the kids in his group would take turns reading the book together. They also had a weekly class google meet, where they met, talked about school, shared what they were doing, etc. Parents also set up zoom play dates for the kids to get together and just talk.

Pre-K: Rapha had an intense regiment everyday, lol. I am laughing because he is only in Pre-K and it is not even a required to attend. This was his schedule: Good morning, Sign-in, Morning meeting, Indoor movement, special event, center time, read along, saying goodbye. His teachers wanted it to feel like the kids were in class at school. They had videos recorded of them saying good morning, like they would greet them everyday at school. His teacher recorded a morning meeting video every day to discuss the day of the week, the weather, letter of the day, daily schedule, etc. She had her home set up just like their classroom was. Everyday they had a special event. Monday's was mystery reader, another day was Spanish, snack with Ms. Wilson, fun with feelings, etc. Indoor movement was his favorite. It was five youtube videos that got the kids up dance moving. Lots of Jack Hartman, Pink Fong, Go Noodle, and Scratch Garden. No, I am not sick of Baby Shark yet, lol. They had themes every week for their work. Center time was where they choose two activities from an assigned list to do that day. His teacher recorded herself reading a book for read along every day. He also had a special google meet once a week with some kids to do a live read along with his teacher. On Fridays they had show and tell. He was a busy boy.

So proud of how hard Henry worked.

Camping assignment: make your own tent.

Camping assignment: make s'mores! No complaining there. The kids were on it.

Rapha was assigned to make home made ice cream in a bag. We got super fancy and made an ice cream shop. He made mint chip, chocolate, and lemon ice cream. We mixed equal parts cream and milk, put it in a zip lock bag, then in another zip lock bag filled with ice and rock salt. We shook the bags for ten minutes, and voila! We had ice cream!