I would recommend splitting 50 children up into 4 Zoom sessions, with about 12 to 13 children per session.
If all sessions are about giving every child about 2 minutes to share something they're doing at home, you can count on being done with each session in about 25 minutes. Not every child will show up every day and not every child will want to share every day.
Zoom has gotten bad publicity, but if you take advantage of their safety features, it works. All you do is go to their website and set up a free account. Under a free account you can have as many meetings as you want as long as the meetings doing go over 40 minutes each. For security, take advantage of requiring passwords and requiring you, the admin, to admit people individually from a waiting room.
On Zoom, you schedule a recurring meeting for each group of children. Zoom gives you a "meeting number" for each meeting. You select a password. Then you give each family the time of the meeting, the meeting number and the password. At the scheduled time, the families go to the Zoom website and put in the meeting number and password.
I run my meetings like this (it takes almost zero prep time):
1) Allow everyone to come in unmuted so the can hear each other as they say hi.
2) Mute everyone
3) Sing our good morning song. The children sing along with me in their own homes, but we have to do it with everyone muted because not everyone is hearing the audio at the same time so it's impossible to sing together
4) I invite the children to unmute themselves and share something they did or made at home. Sometimes they share an art project. Sometimes they share a toy they love. Sometimes they show me how they completed a worksheet their parents printed for them.
I respond positively no matter what they show me. "Wow, you really used a lot of blue," or, "You are really good at doing tricky things."
In many respects, my job is about offering positive energy and support more than anything.
5) I repeat that no one is required to share and anyone can share. In general, the parents are there and t he parents take care of unmuting their children one at a time. Now that I've been doing this for a few weeks, I'm getting better at responding to raised hands and unmuting children when it's their turn to talk.
6) After everyone has had a turn who wants a turn, I unmute everyone again so they can all say goodbye to each other. I sing a goodbye song as they drop off the call.
More recently, I have been writing the letters of the initial sounds of the projects the children choose to show on paper during the call and then holding the letters up for the children to see. So, for example, if a child brings a marble run made from the recycling, I write an "m" and hold it up for the children to see.
I am doing this for the parents as much as the children because I know my parents are feeling stressed about academics and guilty when they don't do enough. So I am trying to find a child-directed way to get in the academics the parents feel are important.
You can do this!
The families seem to love the consistency and the support. The world is full of quality children's programming and educational materials that can be consumed on screens. I don't think you need to feel like you must suddenly become a show producer. Circle time on zoom is kind of like being a show host. And it's going to be hard to compete with professional children's programming.
Families are really lacking in personal connection and attention, however. This child-centered and interaction-based format has seemed to help mitigate that problem in a small way.
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Anne Janai
Specialist, Child Abuse Response and Prevention
School of Teachers
N Chelmsford MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-12-2020 12:31 PM
From: Jill Mueller
Subject: Distance Early Education Successes and Struggles
How many children do you serve. I am overwhelmed by the the thought of this. I know they need contact but I have 50 kids. How do you get them all signed up for zoom. Direction please. Jill
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Jill Mueller
Immanuel Lutheran School
Alliance NE
Original Message:
Sent: 04-11-2020 09:53 AM
From: Anne Janai
Subject: Distance Early Education Successes and Struggles
I wanted to share a few things I've learned in the last few weeks:
THE GOOD:
1) The children need connection. They really benefit from seeing me every day over zoom. They love to see each other's faces and know that we are all still okay in our respective homes.
2) The parents are hanging in there as they can. This is very difficult for them and they benefit from connection, too. They like to see my face over zoom and enjoy sharing alongside their children.
3) I'm not a big fan of show-and-tell at school because it requires children to do too much waiting. But show-and-tell over zoom has been fantastic! Every day, the children are very excited to show me what they have done at home. This increases their sense of connection to me and seems to help incentivize everyone (children and parents) to enjoy learning activities together.
4) Every day, right after our daily zoom show-and-tell, I post a new video of me reading a book, singing a song, or doing an art project. Sometimes this video inspires work from the children. Sometimes it doesn't. I make sure the parents understand that none of the videos are assignments and that they can follow their children's interests at home.
5) I have asked parents to text me photos of children's projects and I post them to a website so that all the other children can see them. The kids seem to love proudly displaying online what they have done at home. I encourage them to copy each other during our zoom calls. For example, one day one boy made a marble run from the recycling. A few days later, another boy did. Both boys shared their marble runs over the zoom call and one of them shared a photo for the website. This seems to be working well.
6) I work in a Montessori school and i was afraid parents would be too stressed about continuing with academics. So, I began by posting a video telling all of them that children don't need to learn to read before Kindergarten and that children learn through play. I also posted a video about the importance of "process over product" in other projects. This seemed to help parents feel a little better.
7) I created a free course to help parents teach their children to read at home if they felt inclined to do so because I understand that in my community, a huge importance is placed on early reading skills. I wanted to make sure I gave them access to something better than worksheets.
THE DIFFICULT:
This is hard for parents. They don't have all the skills they need and many are trying to work full time from home, too. Some of them reach out to me feeling guilty because they aren't perfect. I think I am going to start holding a parent's pow-wow over zoom in the evening one day a week so they can share their struggles and offer each other support. I will be there to help them find solutions.
I have also decided to create an online parenting course that begins with strategies parents can use now and then, over time, progresses into theory and how they can apply theory.
This is where I am today.
What have you learned? What has worked for you? What hasn't worked for you?
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Anne Janai
Lead Teacher
Global Montessori School
Specialist, Child Abuse Response and Prevention
School of Teachers
N Chelmsford MA
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