What is your preschool doing in terms of distance learning?

[Anonymous]

Curious about the range of things preschools are doing.

We are at a center. They have been providing a pretty extensive video library of lessons and teachers reading books. They also have daily Zoom meetings. They're pretty chaotic for my kid's age (she's 3), but the kids like to see their friends and their teachers.

I'm happy with the effort they're putting into helping us do educational activities at home, but I'm curious what other programs are doing.

[Anonymous]

There's a few threads on this already:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/868014.page

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/867554.page

[Anonymous]

Not much it’s pretty pathetic actually

[Anonymous]

Its preschool....OMG
Turn off the screens and just let your kid play!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its preschool....OMG
Turn off the screens and just let your kid play!

Umm ... I'm talking about videos of science experiments that I can help my kid follow along with, or yoga or music classes done by the teachers who normally do those classes.

Yes, it's technically a screen, but it's enriching content.

It takes up at most an hour of the day, but it helps my kid still see her teachers and her friends, while learning.

[Anonymous]

Most preschool kids are not interested in seeing their friends on a screen for an hour at a time. A 15 minute zoom call is more than sufficient. My kids school has them sending in videos of themselves showing things they are doing ( baking, drawing, playing in the yard) that they post. It’s not interactive but it does help them see their friends. Much less chaotic.

[Anonymous]

One of the moms organized weekly zoom calls because the preschool is doing nothing. All the while begging for April and fall tuition.

[Anonymous]

They set up an app where kids can share video clips and photos of what they are working on (which is a lot less crazy than a group activity!)

The teachers send a weekly packet with ideas of games, activities or projects to continue some of the themes they were learning about in class. The supplies are mostly household items or it’s something printable, like a scavenger hunt sheet.

Every day the teachers upload a video of them reading a book so they can have virtual story time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not much it’s pretty pathetic actually

What do you think they should be doing? Good teachers know that the most important parts of preschool are teaching the kids socio emotional skills—that’s impossible to do online. The teachers force feeding those 3-4 year olds worksheets are the ones who don’t know about best practices for early childhood education. Your child should be playing...in the mud, in the bath, in the kitchen while you cook—helping you cook! They should be building blocks and pretending they’re in charge of a blanket fort. They should be strengthening their hands by playing playdoh and squeezing spray bottles. Hopefully your preschool is giving you ideas of what to do at home, but there’s no way that zoom classes and worksheets can in anyway replicate preschool.

[Anonymous]

I hope no one in this thread is also busy debating whether they should be paying for their preschool right now.

[Anonymous]

Can I ask from an opposite perspective?

I’m a toddler daycare teacher. I have been asked to work from home during our closure without much guidance. I am giving it 110%, but I’m at a loss. We are doing books and circle time on zoom, but most families can’t attend because of their working schedule or the simple fact that toddlers just have other plans (which it totally fine). We are sending out suggestions for activities daily. We are personally checking in on each family. But I really want to know what would be helpful. I feel like I’m just adding to the stress of you all trying to work at home with a toddler under your feet and I wish I could help in a more real way. If your teacher is doing something especially helpful, could you please share it with me?

[Anonymous]

Send videos of you reading so parents can show them to their kids at their convenience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most preschool kids are not interested in seeing their friends on a screen for an hour at a time. A 15 minute zoom call is more than sufficient. My kids school has them sending in videos of themselves showing things they are doing ( baking, drawing, playing in the yard) that they post. It’s not interactive but it does help them see their friends. Much less chaotic.

Who said anything about an hour Zoom call? The Zoom calls are 10 minutes. I meant it took an hour to go through the various activities the teachers demonstrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask from an opposite perspective?

I’m a toddler daycare teacher. I have been asked to work from home during our closure without much guidance. I am giving it 110%, but I’m at a loss. We are doing books and circle time on zoom, but most families can’t attend because of their working schedule or the simple fact that toddlers just have other plans (which it totally fine). We are sending out suggestions for activities daily. We are personally checking in on each family. But I really want to know what would be helpful. I feel like I’m just adding to the stress of you all trying to work at home with a toddler under your feet and I wish I could help in a more real way. If your teacher is doing something especially helpful, could you please share it with me?

Our preschool is having the teachers make videos of the lessons they would’ve been doing anyway. They have a curriculum, so they’re basically just translating it to videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not much it’s pretty pathetic actually

What do you think they should be doing? Good teachers know that the most important parts of preschool are teaching the kids socio emotional skills—that’s impossible to do online. The teachers force feeding those 3-4 year olds worksheets are the ones who don’t know about best practices for early childhood education. Your child should be playing...in the mud, in the bath, in the kitchen while you cook—helping you cook! They should be building blocks and pretending they’re in charge of a blanket fort. They should be strengthening their hands by playing playdoh and squeezing spray bottles. Hopefully your preschool is giving you ideas of what to do at home, but there’s no way that zoom classes and worksheets can in anyway replicate preschool.

No one mentioned worksheets, but thanks for playing, Sanctimommy!