Good afternoon everyone,
So today marked the beginning of the Distance learning and e-learning and I was feeling ever so prepared and happy with my set up yesterday. Not so much now, from shortly after 9am the emails and messages started. Emails about accessing the new platforms, all which I had set up over the weekend and then messages from the children via edmodo, one who even asked where to put their written work.
So it has been a very busy morning, responding to emails, preparing differentiated work for some students and answering all queries, even about what copy to write in, so note to self be very specific in the activities tomorrow.
What I did realise is that the majority of my class have contacted me in one way or another and as much as they say they don’t enjoy school, they need the stability in some way. Little videos on SeeSaw to show me their work, comments and general messages to check in. I feel they need some reassurance and even though I had a busy morning, I’d prefer to check in with my class in some way or another.
Today I am focusing on SeeSaw and how I am going to use it over the next few weeks. I had been using SeeSaw as part of the schools digital learning plan and our focus was on recording reading once a month for fluency and recording handwriting progress once a month. My class were really familiar with it and handed the iPad around the classroom to add to their journal. I am glad they were familiar with it now because I will be using SeeSaw for different activities every day now.
Today they are taking a photo of their maths work and adding it to their profile. I can comment and reply to them. Tomorrow they will record their reading and I can respond to that too.
There are also lots of different activities within SeeSaw that you can assign to the class, I sent out a vocabulary organiser for them to complete, it is similar to one we used in class from Vocab Ninja, adding a definition of a word, synonyms, antonyms and then putting it in a sentence. So I am hoping to use this for literacy a couple of times each week.
Another focus this week will be SPHE and emotions, children and adults are becoming more and more anxious about the crisis we are in and it can overwhelming. I watched Leo Varadkar’s speech last night where he thanked everyone for their work in dealing with this current crisis and thought we need to be more thankful for those around us. I found a great video from Kid President online where he speaks about being thankful, (my class love him) and I’ve shared it with the class on Edmodo. I’ll get them to respond to the video with comments and then to share on SeeSaw things they are thankful for. Reminding them we all have to help each other.
I’m going to try share one of these every second day with the class asking them to respond and share their own thoughts and remind them every day that they have their families, they have each other and that I am here to help them too.
So today I am thankful for being at home, i’ve shared an image on Instagram as part of the Covid19 photo challenge. I have the stove lighting in my home office and I’m grateful to be safe at home.
Stay Safe everyone
Aistear Muinteoir
Aistear Múinteoir 