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Monthly Archives: September 2020

Building a Virtual Classroom Community – Team Shields

Posted on September 19, 2020 by scotton23 Leave a comment

Building classroom community is essential for creating a risk free environment for students and building their capacity to learn from and support each other in learning. I teach fifth grade, and friendships are incredibly important at this developmental stage. A sense of community is even more essential during virtual learning because kids need to depend on each other during independent learning time and, more than ever, they need to feel connections with their peers. To help my students build relationships and friendships, I am being intentional about daily opportunities to work in break out rooms on Zoom, and I am pre-assigning the students so that they are with the same kids each day. To help them find connections, we did this activity in our first full week of class. Be sure to check out my video post for a demo!

The idea is simple. Students began by playing a virtual game of Would you Rather, (check out this post for more on how we do that during in person instruction and download these free Would you Rather cards to teach vocabulary related to Powers of Ten on TPT!)

Students met in break out rooms with their team, and began by adding their names using Word Art (my video post on YouTube shows you how to do that!). Then, the team worked through the slides together, each student giving their individual answer to the question. As they worked, they looked for connections – questions where all students shared the same answer. I found that students also engaged in chatting about school, and found connections to things that weren’t on the slides (like one group shared their excitement that we would be studying constellations. We previewed the year with this Escape Room, so they know what is coming!) Click here to download the slides for free – they are editable to add your own touch!

After the teams had worked through the slides (it took about 10 minutes), they returned to the main Zoom Room and shared out some of the connections they had discovered. This helped other teams learn about the groups and also solidified the idea that we are all connected. I purchased lovely shield clip art on TPT from Glitter Meets Glue, so to end the first lesson, each team chose 1 -3 shields that they liked. Before the next lesson, I popped the shields in their slides.

For the second lesson, each team made a final choice about which shield they wanted to decorate. Then they created a team name, and added that with Word Art. Next, they revisited their connection points, thinking of images that would symbolize their connection points. For example, my students overwhelmingly prefer living in the country to the city. Some groups chose country animals (cows and bears….), others chose nature (trees and rolling fields). It was so fantastic to see the different ways they symbolically represented the same concept. They popped the images into their shields, creating a representation of their team.

Because we are all a class, I copied the shields into one Publisher document to create a new header for our Google Classroom. The kids were so excited to see their shields “hanging” up in our Classroom, and they made great connections with the other kids on their team. We will keep these same teams for about a month, and then get new teams to build more connections. Check back for our next cool Classroom Community idea!

For other posts on how to build classroom community, check out:

Teaching Tips

Launching the virtual Classroom – Escape Room!

Posted on September 14, 2020 by scotton23 One comment

So, week one of virtual instruction in in the books. We are doing a soft start so it’s more like Day One is in the books! Even though I’m not with my kids in person, I still have the same goals for the first day – launch academics, make connections and surprise them so they want to come back for more! Be sure to check out how I do that in person with this blog post. Here is how I accomplished that virtually.

I wanted to really catch the students’ attention right away and launch some academics. I also wanted to surprise them. So, I decided to start with a digital Escape Room through the year (click the link to get a copy of the Escape Room I created. Edit and use it if you would like to!). Escape Rooms are so engaging because the story carries students through an adventure. The codes and puzzles bring a level of mystery and challenge that is also very engaging.

I created a story line that gave students a preview of the content we are going to study together. That helped accomplish my goal to launch academics. I decided to use Google Slides instead of Forms because I wanted to get the kids used to working with Slides because we will use them a lot in our virtual classroom . I structured the Escape Room with some of the codes that we will use in other Escape Rooms so that I could introduce them as well.

Here are a few of the slides in the Escape Room. You can download your own copy and modify it to fit your content! And if you like this type of activity, be sure to check out some of the digital Escape Rooms I have on TPT!

As we worked through the first challenge together, I was able to reinforce the content we will be learning and also begin to build connections with the kiddos. For the second code, I sent them to breakout rooms. We will use the same breakout groups for several weeks. This was their first time in the groups, and working on the second code helped them begin to get to know each other. We will build those connections over the next weeks with more opportunities to work with the same group.

For homework, each student clicked on one of the links to watch a video or read an article. Then they left a comment on the Graffiti Wall. That gave them practice with inserting a text box – an essential skill that they will use a lot this year and also gave me insights into what they are looking forward to.

This activity worked so well that I will use it again next year! The kids were definitely hooked and I accomplished my three goals – we launched academics, built connections, and did something surprising!

Teaching Tips

We are all Connected – Building a Virtual Community

Posted on September 11, 2020 by scotton23 Leave a comment

It is so important to build a sense of community even though we are not together in the same classroom right now. This summer I spent a lot of time brainstorming and thinking about how to do that. One of the best projects so far has been this art project.

Before school started, we passed out Chromebooks and school supplies to the kids, and I used that opportunity to give each student a copy of this art project which I purchased on TPT. I also included a self-addressed, stamped envelope and asked the kids to follow the directions, and then mail the art project back to school. About half of the students reported that they mailed it on the second day of class, so you know they were excited!

Once I received the art project back, it was very easy to assemble them and laminate them. Since we are not in school, I wanted to put the project on display somewhere the kids could see it. So, I found a local coffee shop with a big wall facing our main street. They were super gracious (thank you Moe’s!), and let me hang up the artwork.

This project was such a great way to start the school year. The kids were excited to share themselves with each other, and the opportunity to share this message with our community was really meaningful to the kids. The project also gave them a sense that we are a team and that we do big things, together. Plus, they think they are famous now! The response from the parents and community has been really positive, too. I think the message really resonates with the adults during these difficult times. It did take some time to assemble and laminate the project, but I think it was well worth the time because the payoff has been huge. I feel like we are well on our way to building a vibrant, connected, virtual community.

Launching the Digital Writing Notebooks

Posted on September 9, 2020 by scotton23 Leave a comment

Today I launched the Digital Writing Notebooks in my virtual Zoom classroom. I am super excited that we will have a place to gather our stories and share them with each other, even though we are not physically together. As with all plans, some things went exactly as I had hoped and other didn’t. Here’s what happened.

We started our Zoom Room (this is number 5 of the year) with greetings, chit chatting about our lives as readers, talking about how we are growing stamina as readers and nurturing our reading lives… After a few minutes of that, I told the kids that we were going to get something really special – Digital Writing Journals. Predictably, some students cheered and others did not. (If you want to read about the crazy way I usually present the Writing Journals, check out this blog post.) Usually I present the students with their journals after a super silly routine, and then I tell them they can write about anything they want. Most write about their crazy fifth grade teacher who throws tissue paper around the classroom!

I didn’t have that opportunity today, but I still wanted to build excitement, ownership, and I wanted them to write! So, we began by watching a video about how to split your screen, an essential tech skill that they would need for the next part of the lesson. They then went to a break out room to work together to split their screen. The direction was to help each other so that everyone came back to the main room with a split screen – half showing Zoom and half showing our Google Classroom. Most students were able to do that successfully in 5 min.

Then we needed a Brain Break, so we played Strike a Pose. Basically, I call out silly poses (Superhero! Queen/King of the World! Monkey in a tree!) and they move into the pose quickly. It’s a good way to get their brains back on and ready for learning.

After our Brain Break, we all went to the Google Classroom and opened the Digital Writing Journals. That’s when the ohs and ahs started. The kids were excited by how cute the pages were and the idea that they got to customize the covers. I walked them through the journals and then asked them to open the one they wanted to make their own. I showed them the link to the video, and tonight for homework they are customizing. Our goal during class was to write!

So, we tried our first Quick Write! I gave them a prompt of a book or series that they love. We found the first “page” of our Digital Writing Journal, I set the timer and they began to write! I was worried that the typing would slow them down, and for some kids I think that was true. But I had one kid who typed 48 words, so clearly the opposite is true for some kids! Phew!

Then I showed the kids how to insert a horizontal line in Google Slides, count their words and insert a text box. The whole thing took longer on Zoom than in the regular classroom because of learning the tech, so we were only able to do one Quick Write. BUT, the kids were excited, their writing is pretty good, and all of the benefits of Quick Writes (see this blog post for more on that) seem possible through this digital resource. I think using Quick Writes regularly will help students increase their writing fluency, their typing proficiency, and when we get ready for some in depth writing instruction, they will have a place to go back to and try out ideas. I think this is going to be a very successful distance learning adventure!

Check out the other posts in this series about building a digital writing community.

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