Congratulations to all of the teachers (and parents!) that made it through another week! My parents were up here to help my son, and it was still exhausting juggling my own classes and helping my son. Also, over the summer, I forgot how long it takes to prep for online classes. It took longer to complete activities during synchronous time, and then I would have to shift what I had assigned. Luckily, I still had enough planned for the week- as opposed to under planning. I had high hopes of knocking the rest of my prep out Thursday afternoon. Well, it is Friday morning and that didn’t happen!
But on the positive, it was SO WONDERFUL to see my former students even if it was just through Zoom. My fourth and fifth graders LOVED Quizziz Lessons with our polls! I highly recommend that you check it out. We are also starting the lessons about Chile and the protests from Kara Jacobs in eighth grade, and I had some great discussions with my students about that as well.
Many people have started blogging about their new reality, and it is so helpful! Check out these posts:
- Allison shared her first two weeks in a hybrid setting which I found interesting and extremely helpful (and forwarded to all of my friends who are hybrid!)
- Sarah Breckley is back with some strong activities to use to increase CI use in the classroom including a new video about Story-Listening.
- I am obsessed with Kara’s song units- here is her most recent one!
- Since many of us are returning to school, check out some fresh routines for fall.
And in case you missed some of my older posts from this time:
- I wrote this post if you are struggling to transition to using comprehensible input.
- I still LOVE Write and Discuss and use this to continue to practice grammar and spelling in the classroom.
- As I stopped using the textbook, I used this template to communicate my goals to my students.
Maris Hawkins 