Learning at Home Challenge Part 2
Early Learning Resources
As I realize that at home learning and teaching is the only way to continue to education my students, I also realize how many resources teachers and parents have access to make this difficult time more manageable. This week I explored the Scholastic Learn at Home Resources. I decided to create a Preschool Activity Guide to send to parents and students in my class instead of just providing the resource name and link. I wanted to create a guide that parents could use with their child to help them navigate the resource for the first time. This is my way of attempting to teach my parents how to engage and interact with their child while exploring the learning material.
To create the Spring Activity Guide I looked for a child-friendly theme to use in Google Slides and used one of the template pages to create the activity guide. To send out to parents and post in Google Classroom I saved it as a pdf file. This allowed me to create a simple guide for parents to follow in addition to learning activities for students. Once parents and students follow the steps and work through the activities I will feel more comfortable with them visiting the resource on their own and allowing them to choose the activities they want to do based on student interest.
Some cool things I learned about the Scholastic resources include:
- They have a simple layout for the activities; teacher, parent and student friendly
- The site offers Tips and Tricks
- Offers activities for grades PreK through 9
- Has resources for teachers
- Has resources for parents
- Offers a FREE collection of worksheets and activity sheets
- Has links to their Twitter and Instagram so you can see what other parents and teachers are doing while staying at home
One thing I noticed and really like about this resource is for the Prek-K resources the themes are child friendly, promote important health concepts such as hand washing and brushing teeth, offer science resources along with social-emotional learning.
The Scholastic resource is easy to navigate, user friendly and provides enough information without being overwhelming, which is important especially for families who are overburdened right now anyway. Overall I am impressed with this resource and plan to continue to use in my own At Home Learning lesson planning, and when we get back into the classroom! 😉
I started using this yesterday to do with my almost 4 year old while her sister is doing school work. We've only done the bunny one in week 1, but she really enjoyed the lesson. Normally, she's over that kind of stuff before it begins.
ReplyDeleteI love that the books are digital and they are read aloud! It takes the pressure off the parent to read to them with expression and you can stop the story and still ask questions. The student can also watch it over and over again I independently.
ReplyDeleteMaking use of resources like these does make things a little easier for teachers, parents and students. The main idea is to keep learners engaged and active. Parents often struggle with how to dos in in an educational way or with an emphasis on learning. Resources like these with a little guidance from the teacher go a long way to support learners and parents.
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