Hi everyone,
Back to my diary again after the weekend. After the new restrictions and essentially a lockdown was announced on Friday it took me the weekend to overcome the true reality of it all and not feel overwhelmed. I’m sure and I hope that I wasn’t the only one who felt like that during the weekend.
For now, I am sticking to the 2km limit and heading for daily walks, it is great to take time out and clear your head. I am still working on distance learning with my class so I set tasks in the morning, check in with some work on SeeSaw and then head for a walk in the middle of the day. Then back to corrections and more SeeSaw in the afternoon. Honestly I feel like it is more work than the classroom, but the response from parents and my class is good so it feels worthwhile for me.
This week I have tried to raise the spirits of those in my class with a dance challenge which I unfortunately have said I will get involved in too. So I sent them the link of Tadhg Fleming offenders dance (rather than Young Offenders clip) and asked them to learn it. I also sent the link to Scooter song Jumping all over the world and explained that when we are back to school we will use the green screen to make a video of the dances. Something for us all to look forward to, just hope I can learn it too. Will keep you all posted.
There are so many companies and sites offering free membership for teachers. I have been using Epic with my class and I highly recommend it. You can join for free as a teacher and then add your class. For now, they are offering home access for free so children can read books assigned by you or choose a book from their collection. What I really like is the audio book collection, so you can include all members of your class. In some books there is also a quiz designed or you can create your own. I’ve been using it for research, asking my class to read a non fiction book I have assigned and then creating a mind map and adding it to SeeSaw for review.
I am really conscious that parents are stressing at this time, work commitments or lay offs and family time is important so yes I am setting written tasks but also fun, creative and family tasks. I do tell the parents that it is a guide for their child’s learning to allow for them to engage in other tasks if they want. It’s about providing a balance for everyone really in this totally unprecedented times.
Now, i’m off to binge watch Netflix after I get some tasks ready for tomorrow.
Stay Safe Everyone
Aistear Muinteoir
Aistear Múinteoir 