Games for Visual Meetings

I have been having a virtual visual meeting with my students once a week for the past few weeks.  Numbers are growing but it is still a small manageable group.  My goal was to offer this time to help any students who were struggling with lessons.  Despite my poking and prodding, those students still are not showing up.  Instead the time has turned into an Art visit where students share what is important to them and we draw together.  Last week I took a suggestion and the students drew along with me as I used a white board they could view.  This week I was searching for something different and decided on a "Roll-a-Dice" I found on Pinterest.  It was for making "Silly Spiders."  Thanks to whomever created it cause my kids loves it and we had fun first drawing a number of spiders and then coloring them.  I was able to locate a dice that we could manipulate on line so my students could be a part of the choosing the number as well.  I found that here.The virtual visual gave us the opportunity to share with one another by holding our work up to the camera of our computer.  As we were leaving this week, I ask the group what they would like to do when we are together next week and they suggested a Roll-a-Dice Silly Animals.  So, I Googled and came up short.  There are many animal sheet available but they are usually themed by animal and my students wanted silly animals.  Very broad but I rose to the challenge and have successful created an official "Roll-A-Dice Silly Animal" for next week's session.  I'm sharing it here with anyone who would like to use it. Let me know how it goes, okay???

Distance Learning...Still

So distance learning has influenced my teaching in ways totally beyond my initial thinking.  In many ways it has been a challenge.  My shining take away is that it has given me the time and opportunity to look at my lessons with a new approach.  This was a necessity because communication of intent has many times been a huge challenge.  Directions that I think are simple and easy to follow have stumped my students.  Or maybe they just aren't engaged enough to pay attention and absorb intent.  Regardless, I have learned to simplify, simplify, simplify.  A few weeks ago I set up a Sites on Google Classroom.  This has been my game changer.  The lessons are more polished and I feel easier to follow.  I just paste the link into my classroom and the students are directed to a one page span where everything is easier to access. The lesson flows with steps and bullets to define expectations.  No perfect world, I still have a few that even struggle with this but for the most part, we seem to experience more success.  Here is my Home Page.  From there, the different grade levels are across the top with drop downs to sub pages for the lessons.  This is really easy to set up and mostly I love how it looks.  If you are task with using Google Classroom.  Check out the Sites.  This is New Sites not Classical Sites.