Our Learning Before Break

It is pretty astonishing what the students can do online. With Zoom’s breakout rooms, Classkick, and the student’s attention to digital citizenship, we are able to create blended experiences that allow for a lot of learning. We even got a visit from Trustee Thigpen and our Area Superintendent, Jeanna Curtis.

Spreading Kindness

Local artist, Emily Reid, visited the classroom today and the led the students in a card making activity. The theme of the activity was kindness and Ms. Reid helped students create cards with their own unique and artistic flare. Thank you Ms. Reid for donating your time and sharing a terrific lesson with the students.

Thank you Natalie Reed for helping make this happen and working with The Season of Reno, so the residents have cards to look forward to.

Charging Ahead with DL

Describing what the students are able to do online is difficult, but here is my best shot at it. We have managed to keep or exceed the district pace in ELA and math. This is not insignificant, especially with a lot of the learning being done offline, while I meeting with small groups or conferring. Moreover, during a week that included snow days and delayed starts, many of the students Zoomed for optional learning about Nevada history, state test, and practice for the state test. Impressive!

Holiday Celebration 2020

Although we had to do it from a distance, the students still got to celebrate. Thanks to our parent volunteers and a middle school sibling, we got to complete a scavenger hunt, make a holiday craft, and share gifts via Secret Santa. Thanks to all those involved in making the day feel special.

Highlights from November 2020

We certainly found a groove with distance learning, with the images below supplying the evidence. We continue to explore what is possible in this format, and I am so appreciative of the students and families for their willingness to be part of this effort.

Halloween, and a Week of Learning

Thank you the parents and siblings who helped put together a pretty terrific Distance Learning Halloween experience. The Halloween celebration came at the end of a unit of learning that had some students moving from multi-digit multiplication to multi-digit division and other students learning to multiply fractions. We continued to write multi-paragraph papers and we added Pixton as a tool to plan and enhanced our ability to communicate.

October Learning

The move to Distance Learning has become more comfortable for the students and we are covering content at a greater pace. We are working with multiplication and division, experimenting with different types of conjunctions and completed our unit on folktales and fairytales. We filmed a video (here) that will be part of Nevada’s Literacy Conference and before starting our fall break, did a directed draw.

Last Week of School 2019-2020

It is absolutely amazing what the students accomplished during distance learning and it culminated with a Toastmasters experience Thursday night. During the week the students practiced their speeches but also had time for work on biodiversity and adaptations, a virtual field day, and a baby picture quiz. (Thanks parents for sharing the photos.) The Toastmasters event was especially impressive and through Zoom, over 50 people were able to attend.

Ten weeks of distance learning was challenging but the students were great with it; and I am thankful that I got to experience it with this specific group of children and families.

Week 8 Distance Learning

The refrain of the classroom continues to be: learning, despite the distance. It is amazing what the kids continue to get done. We annotated for text evidence, divided with remainders, converted with different metric units, and we finished our animal reports. (We even did a peer edit via the Breakout Rooms in Zoom.) We also got to be part of a Greg Tang experience and participated in the live Mystery Science event.

Week 7 Distance Learning

One of the things the kids have taught me is that learning is still possible despite the distance. We have pushed ahead in math with students applying what they know about multi-digit addition and subtraction to metric conversations. For example 10 kg – 3 kg 268 m. Other students have secured multiplying using the standard algorithm and are now practicing dividing with remainders. We are working on animal reports, revisiting work on forces, and answering text-dependent questions. Moreover, lots of people have come to visit to witness what the kids can do including Trustees Katy Simon-Holland and Andrew Caudill.

We played Pictionary, did PE with Ms. Knuth and ended, as has become our new habit, with a directed draw.