Parents and guardians of students have been put in a unique position since the onset of the pandemic with remote learning becoming the norm, and them becoming the "gatekeepers" of home-based learning.
Parents and guardians of students have been put in a unique position since the onset of the pandemic with remote learning becoming the norm, and them becoming the "gatekeepers" of home-based learning.
What do students who have experienced a loss need in the classroom? Brittany R. Collins digs into the science.
Instant access to inspirational lesson plans, schemes of work, assessment, interactive activities, resource packs, PowerPoints, teaching ideas at Twinkl!
AATA is committed to supporting our community of art therapists during this time of crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to update this list of resources for art therapy clinicians, students, educators, and for the general public.
We all know how critical it is to care for our students' social emotional well-being right now. The question, of course, is how! This is already a tall order for elementary music teachers with our short class times and hundreds of students to contend with, but the difficulty is magnified this year with, depending on our situation, even less class time, the loss of our classroom spaces, the difficulty of connecting with virtual learners, heavy restrictions on singing, dancing, and other activities that would normally be at the top of music teachers' lists for class activities that promote social-emotional health, and so much more. Nonetheless, the importance of tending to our students' needs remains. Here is what I have found success with so far this year. 1. Restorative Mindset This is not so much a practical strategy but, I think, centrally important to making those practical strategies actually work: we as teachers need to approach our students and their families with a restorative mindset. I have written extensively about applying principals of restorative practice/ restorative justice in the music classroom, and of course there is a lot of wonderful literature out there by many others as well. In practical terms, I see this mindset playing out this year in how I approach common stressors and difficult situations. If a student always has their camera off, I (privately) ask them why. If a student is in a bad mood or refusing to participate, I ask them what happened. If a student is not showing up to class online, I ask the family how I can help and find out what their situation may be. These may all sound like common sense, but in my observation there are a lot of teachers who, in all of those examples, are jumping straight to making demands (you must have your camera on during class) and giving ultimatums (if your child doesn't show up on time for class they will fail/ get a zero/ be marked absent and put you on track to be reported for educational neglect). I understand why many teachers are doing this- we are under a lot of pressure to prove that we can still provide students with a worthwhile education remotely, and this form of teaching is so new and foreign for most of us- but that does not change the harmful effects these responses have. If you're new to the concept of restorative practices, start here: 2. Routines With so much upheaval in every aspect of our lives, predictability is critical to our emotional well-being right now. As hard as it may be with our teaching modalities changing constantly and so many new things to adapt to, class routines are an important and effective way to promote emotional health. This can be as simple as a hello and goodbye song to start and end each lesson, or using the same format for posted lessons so students know how to complete their work! I have found a few key routines very helpful both for in-person and virtual teaching this year, which you can read more about in this post. 3. Individual Connections I can't say enough about the importance of making individual connections whenever we can! I make it a point to greet every single student by name at the beginning of class. I'm also leaning hard into any sorts of inside jokes/ nicknames I have with students (being careful, of course, to avoid anything that would offend or embarrass students)- some love to change their name on zoom and have me call them by that name the entire lesson, some have told me a funny story, even in previous years, that I'll try to reference randomly in class, etc. I also encourage and praise any aspect of students' personal lives that they share with me, whether that's siblings joining in with the lesson, their bedroom decor, or pets in their laps. Of course I am mindful of any students who don't want to be publicly pointed out (for those students I will send them a private chat or speak with them privately if we're in person), or things I see in their homes that students didn't intend to share, but anything that helps students feel seen and gives us a way to connect on a personal level, and encourages them to connect with each other (which is where pointing out students in front of the class helps the others notice each other), is a good thing. 4. Talk Time Since we started teaching fully remotely, I have quickly learned that I need to give kids the time to just chat with me- especially the younger ones! Not since my first year of teaching have I felt the need to give students time to just tell me whatever they want, but my younger students are so much more motivated to come to class, and are so much happier and engaged, when they have time to tell me that their uncle's birthday is tomorrow, or show me the toy their baby brother is playing with, or explain their theory on why snails have shells. I've realized that, without the usual ways I connect with them in person, they need that time to just say whatever they're thinking about, and I am a fresh audience for them! I let them unmute for the first few minutes while students are joining, and I try to end the lesson a few minutes before the end of class and let those who want to stay and chat unmute then as well. Of course, there is almost always someone who doesn't get to say everything they wanted to- I always tell them before I end the zoom that they should send me a message in Google Classroom if they didn't get to share something verbally! I have been intentionally giving more time to chat with my in-person students as well. I use the time when I am coming in and setting up my cart, and then packing up to leave, to let students share and chat with them about life. They aren't as desperate for conversation because they have each other and can make those social connections, but we are all desperate for more human connections these days, right? Of course these points barely scratch the surface of this enormous and important topic, but it is a start. What strategies have you found most helpful for fostering social-emotional well-being as a music teacher in pandemic times? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Parents and guardians of students have been put in a unique position since the onset of the pandemic with remote learning becoming the norm, and them becoming the "gatekeepers" of home-based learning.
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Back to school wellbeing questionnaire for assessing how children are feeling prior to returning to school after the pandemic.
No matter where you live, chances are good that the coronavirus has been on your mind. In today’s post, we share an interactive graphic with many free downloadable resources that can be used …
Online Learning Resources for Kindergarten Many schools around the world are closing due to the COVID19 coronovirus pandemic to contain the virus and prevent it spreading. Many teachers have not had
We all know how critical it is to care for our students' social emotional well-being right now. The question, of course, is how! This is already a tall order for elementary music teachers with our short class times and hundreds of students to contend with, but the difficulty is magnified this year with, depending on our situation, even less class time, the loss of our classroom spaces, the difficulty of connecting with virtual learners, heavy restrictions on singing, dancing, and other activities that would normally be at the top of music teachers' lists for class activities that promote social-emotional health, and so much more. Nonetheless, the importance of tending to our students' needs remains. Here is what I have found success with so far this year. 1. Restorative Mindset This is not so much a practical strategy but, I think, centrally important to making those practical strategies actually work: we as teachers need to approach our students and their families with a restorative mindset. I have written extensively about applying principals of restorative practice/ restorative justice in the music classroom, and of course there is a lot of wonderful literature out there by many others as well. In practical terms, I see this mindset playing out this year in how I approach common stressors and difficult situations. If a student always has their camera off, I (privately) ask them why. If a student is in a bad mood or refusing to participate, I ask them what happened. If a student is not showing up to class online, I ask the family how I can help and find out what their situation may be. These may all sound like common sense, but in my observation there are a lot of teachers who, in all of those examples, are jumping straight to making demands (you must have your camera on during class) and giving ultimatums (if your child doesn't show up on time for class they will fail/ get a zero/ be marked absent and put you on track to be reported for educational neglect). I understand why many teachers are doing this- we are under a lot of pressure to prove that we can still provide students with a worthwhile education remotely, and this form of teaching is so new and foreign for most of us- but that does not change the harmful effects these responses have. If you're new to the concept of restorative practices, start here: 2. Routines With so much upheaval in every aspect of our lives, predictability is critical to our emotional well-being right now. As hard as it may be with our teaching modalities changing constantly and so many new things to adapt to, class routines are an important and effective way to promote emotional health. This can be as simple as a hello and goodbye song to start and end each lesson, or using the same format for posted lessons so students know how to complete their work! I have found a few key routines very helpful both for in-person and virtual teaching this year, which you can read more about in this post. 3. Individual Connections I can't say enough about the importance of making individual connections whenever we can! I make it a point to greet every single student by name at the beginning of class. I'm also leaning hard into any sorts of inside jokes/ nicknames I have with students (being careful, of course, to avoid anything that would offend or embarrass students)- some love to change their name on zoom and have me call them by that name the entire lesson, some have told me a funny story, even in previous years, that I'll try to reference randomly in class, etc. I also encourage and praise any aspect of students' personal lives that they share with me, whether that's siblings joining in with the lesson, their bedroom decor, or pets in their laps. Of course I am mindful of any students who don't want to be publicly pointed out (for those students I will send them a private chat or speak with them privately if we're in person), or things I see in their homes that students didn't intend to share, but anything that helps students feel seen and gives us a way to connect on a personal level, and encourages them to connect with each other (which is where pointing out students in front of the class helps the others notice each other), is a good thing. 4. Talk Time Since we started teaching fully remotely, I have quickly learned that I need to give kids the time to just chat with me- especially the younger ones! Not since my first year of teaching have I felt the need to give students time to just tell me whatever they want, but my younger students are so much more motivated to come to class, and are so much happier and engaged, when they have time to tell me that their uncle's birthday is tomorrow, or show me the toy their baby brother is playing with, or explain their theory on why snails have shells. I've realized that, without the usual ways I connect with them in person, they need that time to just say whatever they're thinking about, and I am a fresh audience for them! I let them unmute for the first few minutes while students are joining, and I try to end the lesson a few minutes before the end of class and let those who want to stay and chat unmute then as well. Of course, there is almost always someone who doesn't get to say everything they wanted to- I always tell them before I end the zoom that they should send me a message in Google Classroom if they didn't get to share something verbally! I have been intentionally giving more time to chat with my in-person students as well. I use the time when I am coming in and setting up my cart, and then packing up to leave, to let students share and chat with them about life. They aren't as desperate for conversation because they have each other and can make those social connections, but we are all desperate for more human connections these days, right? Of course these points barely scratch the surface of this enormous and important topic, but it is a start. What strategies have you found most helpful for fostering social-emotional well-being as a music teacher in pandemic times? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Now, more than ever, we have been increasingly concerned about our health. Amidst the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, people became frantic in an effort to preserve their own health and the health of those they love. Something we need to think about as we approach the beginning of this very strange a
Practicing mindfulness is so important- for adults and children! I started to learn more about it and build a mindfulness practice, for myself and for my daughter, during the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Of course I wanted to find all of the mindfulness…
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Compensatory Education and Compensatory Services If your school district does not give your child the special education services they are supposed to, you may be
Your classroom has probably always been filled with visual supports. But this school year isn't like any other year... we are having to rethink and change routines & expectations, which can be really tough for students. I want to share 3 types of visuals that can support learners when returning to in-person learning during the pandemic. Note: This post has Amazon affiliate links. I personally purchased all of the linked materials for my classroom and they've been great! I was not given the materials nor am I paid by the companies for promoting them. I simply get a few cents from Amazon if you purchase them through my links. First let me say that it's important to remember that every district, state and school will have different guidelines and expectations around returning to in-person learning safely. My guidelines might be different than yours, make sure you are following your specific guidelines. Hygiene & cleaning visuals: Your cleaning routines and expectations have probably changed a lot due to COVID. We have to clean more often and use different cleaning products. We are using a variety of schedules to remind students & staff what times we need to clean. We also have visual task analyses to support with cleaning tables, washing hands correctly and wearing masks correctly. You can grab these visuals from my TpT here. You can grab these visuals from my TpT here. You can grab these visuals from my TpT here. This 20 second hand washing timer is AMAZING! When students tap it, it lights up for 20 seconds. After 20 seconds, the light turns off and it quietly beeps to indicate that students have washed their hands long enough. It can be found here (affiliate link). Routine visuals: I normally have at least a few students returning to our classroom who I taught the previous year. That is always nice because some of our daily routines stay the same year to year, so students come in with prior knowledge & skills around the routines. It seems like 99% of our routines have to change this year, so I'm really upping the visual supports for routines! We are using visuals for organizing clean and dirty materials. We are teaching students that they can get items from "clean" buckets and spaces and once they use the item, it should go into the "dirty" buckets. We have "clean" and "dirty" buckets for a variety of items like books, toys/ free choice materials, cleaning rags, etc. Teachers will remove items from the "dirty" buckets periodically throughout the day. Then we will clean or quarantine the materials based on our district guidelines. You can find the clean and dirty labels from my TpT shop here. We also made a new routine for students to check out toys/ materials for free choice and break time. We have materials organized in bins on a shelf that has clean and dirty cubbies. We use a visual schedule and "checked out" cards to support students and staff with the process. You can see the below images to read more about our routine. We are using mostly plastic toys and cleaning them with a disinfectant spray provided to us from the district. We have new routines & expectations for moving around the classroom space. We are teaching students to use certain walking patterns/ routes to move around the classroom and stay social distanced. We use carpet strips to make arrows to support students and staff with the walking routes. You can find the carpet marker strips on Amazon here (affiliate link). Visual boundaries: In an ideal world, we would be able to use furniture, like bookshelves or dividers, to create physical boundaries to make social distanced spaces. However, many of us don't have the needed furniture or space to do this. I'm using carpet strips and circle velcro markers to create boundaries for students' individual work spaces, for maintaining social distancing when lining up and You can find these velcro circle spots on Amazon here (affiliate link) I hope this helps you with setting up your classroom with visuals! Hang in there & stay healthy!
This resource is the interactive, digital version of my Clip It Alphabet Beginning Sound Cards - perfect for engaging students and keeping parents happy with this no prep - paper free resource. This has been created to support teachers and students during this period of distance learning by being cr...
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Is your school district closed due to the COVID 19 pandemic?In this blog post, I am sharing some tips educators can use when trying to assist parents and students while facing school closures.
Lesson resource on eating disorders and the impact of social media on the increase in people seeking support for eating disorders since the pandemic. The lesson uses Zara McDermott’s (from Love Island) recent documentary alongside considered discussion prompts (these could also be turned to written questions). The link to the documentary is provided. Available as an individual resource or as part of our annual subscription offer. You can find sample slides on our TES Shop here. Please enquire by email if you would like this resource in a different lesson length or format. [email protected]
Practicing mindfulness is so important- for adults and children! I started to learn more about it and build a mindfulness practice, for myself and for my daughter, during the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Of course I wanted to find all of the mindfulness…
Use this collection for students with disabilities and distance learning to find online resources and know your rights when it comes to the law.
This what if monster show will help children to deal with their worries by using different strategies. They will learn several strategies.
As a result of the pandemic and lockdowns, more children above the age of 4 are experiencing separation anxiety being away from home and their loved ones. Our Separation Anxiety Activity Pack has 20 pages of resources and worksheets to work through with your little one to help them feel more confident about their independence. If you're wondering how to help to support your child through their anxiety, or looking for relaxing and calming activities that address their fears then try our pack. Download now from Etsy for just £3.79, or sign up to the Be Happy Hub and download this pack plus more than 200 other wellbeing resources for just £1.99 a month! Head over to www.behappyresources.co.uk and hit the sign up button. Featured in this pack: · Colouring activities - affirmation colouring sheets calm and inspire · Home Away From Home - this activity allows your child to take their 'home' anywhere in the world with them · My Boomerang - helps children to realise that you will come back · Love Bugs - for your child to send you love when you're not there · Fun ways to say goodbye · Bravery Bracelets PLUS MORE!
Hexagons. Who knew that bees had the secret to understanding the connections between ideas, concepts and facts? I have been using hexagons with groups of children and teachers over the past year bu…
Calming Strategies Activities: Help students find calming strategies that work for them with this fun school counseling classroom guidance lesson! This lesson includes a PowerPoint storybook and printable materials for 7 centers. Students explore hands-on coping skill centers to learn ways to calm their bodies and minds before approaching a conflict. These activities are great for coping skills elementary school classroom guidance lessons or small group counseling activities. What's included: →Detailed, easy to use lesson plan →Introductory story in PowerPoint form →Printable materials for 7 hands-on centers →2 options for student handouts →Printable posters for visual aids in a calm down corner or bulletin board →Pictures examples for easy set-up Please Note: This lesson is included in a larger, more comprehensive conflict resolution curriculum, available here. Terms Copyright © Counselor Keri, Keri Powers Pye. All rights reserved by author. This product is to be used by the original downloader only. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clipart and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. Intended for classroom and personal use ONLY. See product file for clip-art and font credits.
This PBIS Rewards eBook is full of resources for PBIS in distance learning. Tips for how to support your teachers, staff, and students.
Let’s face it. We’ve all had that student that just doesn’t know where their body is supposed to be in the classroom. We’ve tried TONS of interventions, but they still seem to wander around the classroom and you need to find a way to keep them in the correct space. For our visual learners, visual ... Read More about Creating Visual Boundaries in your Classroom
