How To CoronaSchool in Kindergarten

Teachers around the world are quickly having to figure out how to deliver instruction online.  The past week has been a whirlwind of emotions for me.  Things have not been easy and, yes, tears have been shed.  I'm still trying to figure out how to handle the stress of creating daily lessons for my 27 kindergartners, while also providing and organizing the instruction of my own 4 children.  And just when I thought things couldn't get worse, we had a 5.7 earthquake on Wednesday morning, the first official day of remote learning in my district.  My house was swaying, my daughter was crying...and then I had to go in to my school, nervous and unsure where the day would go.

But I'm happy to say that I have come up with a plan for online learning for my students.  I would love to share what I'm doing in case it helps any of you.  Please be kind in your critiques...things won't be even close to perfect...and my instruction won't be as comprehensive as normal.

As I thought about how I wanted to roll things out, I knew I wanted everything as simple and concise as possible.  I didn't want parents to have to click back and forth between task lists.  I also wanted something that students could mostly do independently...without a lot of guidance or instruction from parents.  I decided to create one daily Nearpod lesson.  I email parents the code of the day and a list of materials needed.  They help the student put the code in and then I will walk the students through everything they need to do for the day.

Teaching kindergarten means I need to record LOTS of videos.  Obviously, they can't just read a list of instructions.  I also didn't want to use a lot of the resources floating around the internet because I knew my kinders needed to see ME.  They want to see me teaching their lesson, singing songs, reading books, etc.  I also knew, that it wouldn't be possible to do videos of everything we normally do in the classroom.  My district asked us to provide 40 minutes each in math, reading, and science.  We have half-day kindergarten in Utah...which means only 20 minutes of each. With all that in mind, I began planning my daily lessons.

First up, I recorded the song and calendar we start with each morning.

Then we do our Heggerty phonemic awareness routine.

Then we do a 3-part phonics drill.  This is something my students are used to.  The only unusual thing is that we normally do the last part of the drill in sand.

Next, I sometimes record a phonics lesson.  I just use the whiteboard and have students use whiteboards at home.  (Last week I asked all my parents if they had a whiteboard and marker at home...or if they could put a white sheet of paper inside a page protector.  A few of them checked out whiteboard markers from me.)

Then we go into our listening comprehension/science lesson.  The pictures in this video are from the CKLA curriculum...you can download the lessons and materials free online.  I just used the screen recording function in PowerPoint to flip through the PDF's and record my voice reading the story and asking the questions.

Then we have a writing activity.

Next up, is math.  I like to include a YouTube song or two as a warm-up.  My students LOVE Jack Hartman's Count to 100...so I love to put that one in.  Then I record a video of me teaching the math concept.  Sometimes it's something like this:

Or sometimes I do something more high-tech:

Honestly, don't bore yourself watching those entire videos! Haha.  This is just to give you an idea...and please know that these were made quickly and I know there are mistakes.  But when you only have 2 days to figure out how to teach online, that's how it goes. :)

I usually include some type of closing video, letting them know what they can do if they'd like more.  I encourage the following apps: ST Math, Teach Your Monster to Read, and Epic.  I've also sent home decodable books for students to read each night.

Sometimes I throw other fun videos in as well.  I saw Dr. Jean post a darling Coronavirus song online...and I knew I had to replicate.  So, tomorrow, my students will see this:

Let's see what else...I keep all students accountable by having them use the Seesaw app.  They take pictures of their work in this app...and then I get to see and comment on it.  I was very lucky that we could put together packets of work that the parents could come pick up.  We also let parents come check out ipads/devices if they needed them.  Which actually led to a huge problem...

My district blocks YouTube...so if students want to access my Nearpods on a school device, they won't be able to see my videos.  I can't put the videos from my computer directly into Nearpod because they are too big. I found this out Tuesday morning after I had already created 3 Nearpods.  I seriously cried because of all the hours of work wasted!  Luckily, I found a solution.  It's time-consuming, but doable.  I downloaded "4k Video Downloader" and put all my videos in there and then was able to upload to Nearpod directly.   If you fall into this camp, I made a video explaining this process.  And if you're curious how these videos all look in a Nearpod, I show that at the beginning of the video.

I hope this helps some of you!  This has been such a huge journey and steep learning curve for all of us.  Hang in there and please let me know if you have any questions!