MORE Teaching Resources for Online Learning (part 2)

We are heading into week four in our Online/Distance/Home/Remote Learning.

There have been many ups and downs and I want to share three more resources that have helped make this transition more doable.

Be sure to check out my first three resources HERE.

Disclaimer: I have been teaching fifth this year, but my daughter is in third and I taught third for a billion (actually 12, but you know...) years, so I am offering these ideas for a 3-5 setting. As always, feel free to pick and choose based on your own situation :)

Would You Rather? Math Questions

This Would You Rather? Math site is a great space to grab some interesting math challenge questions.

Divided into K-2 and 3-5 (and higher), there are different "Would you rather?" questions that students will need to choose and then explain.

The images are relevant (many are from grocery stores that involve treats!), and what I love most is that there aren't any clear "right" or "wrong" answers.

I am posting one of these a week with the Google Form they provided HERE for my students to fill out.

It has become a fun discussion point in our math class meetings and I have enjoyed reading their justifications. Plus, it allows them to do some real-world math and then decide which answer suits them best.

Take a peek at this math-themed Would you Rather? site HERE.

Google Classroom Comment Bank

If you're using Google Classroom like us, it is such a fantastic way to assign and collect student work!

We are no longer doing grades, but I do want to leave comments and feedback to let my class know I'm reading their work and encourage them to keep sharing their great ideas.

I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed with all of this commenting, though! Instead of our occasional Google Classroom assignment, I am now faced with multiple subjects across the week. 

While I want to leave them comments, I was spending so much of my time typing the same messages over and over, so I needed something to streamline that process.

Thankfully, I discovered the Comment Bank.

Using this Comment Bank, I can create several versions of the type of feedback I want to leave for that assignment.

**For this first month of distance learning, I am choosing to not give a laundry list of things for them to work on. My main goal is encouragement, support, and maybe giving them something to think about for next time. We'll get to the nitpicking later (if ever). In the meantime, I just want them to feel my virtual high-five or hug at a job well done. 

This has allowed me to add to my students' work in a way that benefits us both: they get heartfelt feedback from me and I am not having to type all afternoon long.

First, I add quite a few comments that genuinely sound like me. Some examples include:

• I love how you added detail to support your reasons!
• Thanks for sharing your creativity. I could actually picture this in my mind!
• You have so many strong reasons in this piece. Great work!

If you were a student of mine, these would all sound very familiar.

After I've added them to the Comment Bank, I click in their Google Doc and either highlight a section or just click at the end and add a comment.

I can click the hashtag (#) symbol in the comment field to bring them all up, or I can start to type and the comments with those words will pop up. I can then just select one or two and submit.

It has saved so much time, but still allowed me to go through their work and start giving them the encouragement they need during this time.

To learn more about the Comment Bank, you can Google for some amazing tutorials or check out Google's FAQ page HERE.

Emojipedia.org

Emojipedia.org seems both silly and necessary to add here.

I think as teachers, we are some of the most expressive people in the world. We use our face, our hands, our voice, and our bodies to command and conduct our classrooms all year long.

The things we use to engage and support our kids are the same things we no longer have in this online world.

I still use my expressiveness as much as I can in our Google Meet class meetings, but when it comes to assigning work, giving directions, and writing feedback, text-only just wasn't cutting it.

Thankfully, my friend Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files introduced me to Emojipedia.org and I've been obsessed.

Side note: I am equally obsessed with putting Bitmoji me into Google Slides with our weekly assignments, so that's also worth doing if you haven't experimented with it yet!

On Emojipedia, you can search and copy any emoji out there. It will give you the different looks for each operating system and it's been great to see such simple things bring smiles to my students.

I've added them to our Google Classroom topics:

They make an appearance in directions:

And I love incorporating them into feedback for my students:

It's a quick and simple and my hope is that it adds a fun visual twist and some virtual emotions that I can't provide face-to-face these days.

Find every emoji you could ever need HERE.

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I hope these three resources can help alleviate some stress as we prepare for another week of teaching. If you have any you'd like to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.

In the meantime, know that I am cheering you on and wishing you, your students, and your family the best during this time. You are having such a positive impact on your students and they are so fortunate to have you!