I hope you all enjoyed this beautiful sunny day!

I need your help! I am trying to make our online time together as smooth as possible but lately we have been having a few issues. I wanted to address these full group. If these issues continue, I will be contacting you individually to address my concerns.

1. There should be NO eating while we are on camera. This is happening daily and I remind them but it continues to happen. We are only on Zoom for a short amount of time. We have more than enough time off camera when they can eat a snack and/or lunch. If your child is eating, I will put them in the waiting and they can join us as soon as they are done. Food can be a huge distraction and if they are eating, they are not doing the work.
2. Students should not have ANY toys or stuffed animals while we are learning. I know that we are home and that there are toys everywhere, but we really need to cut down on the number of distractions. Try as I might, I cannot compete with LOL dolls and Captain America. They are more than welcome to bring them to share at the appropriate time.
3. Speaking of distractions, please do your best to limit the amount of distractions around your child during live instruction. Again, I know you are in your home and there are MANY things going on, but if your child is distracted by the TV, another child, or food, it makes learning hard. Please do your best to set your child up for success by giving them an area to work that has as few distractions as possible.
4. There is a page in the daily folder called “What do I need for today?” I list the materials that the students need everyday. PLEASE USE THIS PAGE TO HELP GET YOUR CHILD READY FOR THE DAY. There are some things that the students should have available everyday (For example: dry erase marker, dry erase pocket, eraser, pencil/crayons/markers, paper (white or notebook), reading and writing book for the current unit, math toolbox). On this page, I will list other things such are what worksheets we need, scissors, cubes, etc. We spend FAR TOO MUCH time waiting for everyone to find the materials that they need. I try to keep our time on Zoom short and meaningful. It is very frustrating to those students who are ready to go but need to wait for friends who are not. There will be times when I did not put something on the list and when that happens, I will tell the students as soon as I can so they can get those things ready before we need them. I suggest keeping a basket or a box near where your child works that holds everything they need for the day. If you help them get everything together before the lesson on zoom starts, they will be much more independent once we are working.
5. Please talk to your child about using the mic on/off button. Most of the students do a great job of staying on mute until it is their turn to talk. Unfortunately the microphones can give back a LOT of feedback and background noise so it is impossible to keep everyone’s mic on. If your child is repeatedly interrupting the activity I may need to place them in the waiting room until they fix that behavior. I try really hard to call on every student when they raise their hand. But sometimes I just don’t see them or it isn’t the time to share. I try to let the kids into the meetings a few minutes early so they can talk to each other. I leave my camera and mic off so they can have that time as friends! I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to these conversations! 🙂

If you have any questions regarding any of these, please let me know! While learning over Zoom is NOT ideal, we are all doing our best. I appreciate every one of you for getting your child on Zoom and helping them with their learning. I continue to be blown away by the amount of growth these kiddos are making!