Around Here...
We are continuing to mourn the loss of my brother, Ben. His obituary was published today. Our family is working together to work through all that comes with losing someone, which has its own set of challenges given stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures. We are doing our best and taking it day by day. We are grateful for all of the support we have been given from friends and family from both near and far. Your continued thoughts and prayers for our family, my parents, and Ben's children are appreciated.
Around Here...
We are all doing our best with distance learning. This has been a whirlwind of work from my teacher perspective. In Minnesota, teachers were given 8 days to develop a distance learning curriculum for the period of five weeks. Our school was also directed to develop a plan for providing childcare for families with health care providers and essential workers and lunches, which was tasked to our elementary principal, which kept her very busy.
When we first got the order, the directive was that we were expected to work from the school during our contract hours. So we took time to put much thought and conversation in developing an equitable plan with consistency among grade-levels for our students and families. In our elementary school, we outreached to families over the phone, assessed family limitations with technology, and determined the childcare needs, which families wanted/needed school lunches during the period of distance learning. We decided that in the elementary it was important to give our students and families print materials and to not rely solely on digital materials.
We had our distance learning plan submitted and the packets for week 1 ready on day 5. That afternoon, we learned of the executive stay-home order for our state (which included teachers). All of our elementary school teachers and support staff went into supercharge mode to type up, print, copy, collate and package 4 more weeks of distance learning materials. We got it all done with a LOT of work now and families have the materials at home. Now my job is to facilitate the instruction of the materials from home (through email conversations, recorded videos or phone or video chat), I am also expected to interact with my students/families daily and take attendance. We all made it through week 1. So between teaching, supporting my own four kids in their learning and all that has come with my brothers passing, it has been quite a week.
Our first week of distance learning curriculum for kindergarten focused on setting up a block of academic time, working on communication routines and at home and exploring supplemental online resources (in my teaching I am using Class Dojo, Epic, Lalilo and Raz Kids). I made these videos and posted them on my ClassDojo site to share with my students when I boiled down sap from our schoolyard maples at home:
https://tinyurl.com/sapbucket1
https://tinyurl.com/sapbucket2
https://tinyurl.com/sapboiling1
https://tinyurl.com/sapboiling2
https://tinyurl.com/sapboiling3
https://tinyurl.com/sapboiling4
https://tinyurl.com/sapboiling5
Around Here...
I have been thinking about the blessings of my mom and dad, who recently turned 70 (my mom March 13 and my dad March 31). I want to recognize their milestone birthdays even will all that is going on with our world and our family. Both my parents are active and healthy and they are both sharing their presence and love with our family. I am so grateful to have them both to share with my children.
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This is turning into an epic post, so I am going to sign off now. Thank you again for your kind words and support during this challenging time.
Stay well!