PreK teacher to parents: what worked?

[Anonymous]

As much as I hope to be able to teach in person next year, I am mentally preparing for distance learning. So, if your 4 or 5 year old experienced distance learning this spring, what worked well? Zoom frequency? Activities done during zooms? What other activities were provided? On what platform?
Help me make the best of this in the fall if need be.
Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Videos were effective. Worksheets and art projects.

Zoom calls were not. My kid got really upset at the zooms where she could see her friends but couldn’t keep chatting with them.

[Anonymous]

Please don't always keep the children on mute. My school did this and kids could only say a word or two during the whole session. It was really sad.

[Anonymous]

What didn’t work were zoom meetings with the entire class, kids couldn’t talk when they wanted to do so and kids got bored. A teacher on another class at our school had video calls with students one to one, and my friend said that worked really well. The teacher called each student twice a week, which allowed her to give the student an assignment during one call and then to discuss the final product at the next call. The few videos the teacher produced were not very helpful, because, unsurprisingly and despite best efforts, the production quality was no where near what the students are used to from PBS, etc. What also didn’t work was sending links to handwriting without tears and leaving to to the parents to figure out how to teach the lessons to the students.



My suggestion for next year would be:

1. One on one calls between students and the teachers, or, in the alternative, calls with no more than two or three students.

2. I don’t expect teachers to be able to accomplish everything they would in the classroom via a video. I recognize that I will need to help and do some of the lessons at home. So I could use some coaching. First, please have written lesson plans that you can share so that I know what to do, how to do it, what the goal of the lesson is, and how it fits into the curriculum and developmental goals. Second, please provide an instructional video of how you would present the lesson. Even if you make a video for the student to watch, it would be helpful to have a parent edition of the lesson that explains the lesson to me so that I can help my child when she watches the lesson. Third, have zoom meeting drop in office hours so I can ask questions about the lessons.

Sorry for typos, writing on a phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Videos were effective. Worksheets and art projects.

Zoom calls were not. My kid got really upset at the zooms where she could see her friends but couldn’t keep chatting with them.

For us, videos, if for learning, weren't that useful - I can find a million on Youtube that do the same thing. It was more fun to just see their teachers, so just fun games would have been better.

Zooms were way more useful one they were 5-10 kids. My kid was engaged the whole time.

Loved worksheets that just involved math, reading, cutting, coloring. Didn't love any projects that involved me collecting supplies.

Totally depends on the kid, I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Nearly 5 yo child. Zoom with the class was entirely overwhelming minus when singing. It was stressful for her and could wreck a good chunk of day. Prerecorded videos were better. We received a post card from her teacher which was a big hit. A weekly one on one or small group call would be amazing, though I know that’s a huge thing to ask. A show and tell where each child gets a chance to share would be neat. Also it seems like 30 mins is the max. We loved getting worksheets for home and video links to a weekly topic, like a read aloud story, kid song, themed yoga.

[Anonymous]

Our 3s class (mostly 4 year olds) was initially scheduled for 30 minutes and it was way too short. Parents requested it to be longer, so it's 45 minutes, and sometimes it runs longer. It takes a while to get everyone settled and i think 45 minutes is much better. We have greetings, singing, learning of letters, months of the year, days of the week, and there is a storytime (from YouTube) and a class project. Obviously some kids are more engaged than the others.

[Anonymous]

My 4yo has only had a couple live zoom sessions and those were cluster-f's, everyone talking over each other, no learning. We supplement with a video 2-3x a week from an outside source and he pays a lot more attention to content but starts to fidget after about 30 min (it's an hour).

[Anonymous]

My Pre-K daughter had live Zoom with half of her class (9 kids) for 30 mins on MWF. She had small group Zoom with 4-5 kids on Tues and Thursday for math/reading and a 1on1 FaceTime call with her teacher once a week. She also had 30 minutes of specials classes 2-3 times a week.

Kids were always expected to participate and were called on. No one was on mute unless the teacher needed to get the group quiet for a few minutes. The best classes were the small groups and when the teacher did math and reading by using visuals through the "shared screen". Trying to read stories with a book in hand through Zoom is the LEAST effective way to teach. It just doesn't translate. Online books through the shared screen were good.

Theme days were also effective and a great way to get the kids excited to be there. Kids could wear Pjs, super hero costumes, silly hats, or bring their favorite stuffed animal to class on different days. Show and tell was a very important part of getting kids to participate. At that age, they love bringing something to class.

Online instruction must be in smaller groups at this age. You cannot teach 18+ kids effectively on one zoom call. It just doesn't work. Teachers need to split it up and hold multiple calls.

[Anonymous]

What worked: Small group Zooms (no more than 4 kids) for Math/Reading Instruction. Fridays were still show and tell with whole group zooms.

[Anonymous]

By the end Zoom worked well as long as the teachers controlled muting and immuring. Given our crazy workload we weren’t able to do many of the suggested activities but got her on each and every Zoom call, and she got it by the end.

[Anonymous]

My 4 year old was overwhelmed by Zoom calls with the whole class. Chaotic and a waste of time.

Activity packets from the school were helpful.

[Anonymous]

If you want any learning to happen, then you need to either have small groups or just do videos with worksheets.

[Anonymous]

I'm very curious about what kind of learning is going on over Zoom in 4 year olds' classes! Math and reading small groups? What and how?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all of the feedback everyone! You have confirmed my main thought which is that I may need to break my zooms up into small groups at the beginning. I teach 2 classes so with 40 children, plus my own kid’s schedules, it will be...interesting.
Thank you again! I appreciate your help!