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# 1  Castner's Weekly Schedule 11_30 -12_04

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Learning A to Z books read by Darcy Johnston's Group

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Lesson 7: Hands On: Algebra * Put Together Numbers to 10

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Curriculum Planned for Distance Learning

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Hello! I've been working for RSU3 for four years now. Before transitioning to my role as a remote teacher, I've enjoyed working with all K-5 students in the district as the Elementary Teacher of Agricultural Projects (aka School Garden Teacher). Prior to this position, I worked as a special education teacher for 16 years.

I live off-the-grid in Searsmont with my husband, Poly, teenage daughter, Stella, two dogs, and two cats. I love getting my hands in the soil, organic gardening, canning our produce, spending time with my 102 year old grandmother, and watching our daughter play sports.

This is my thirteenth year in the RSU3 district. I spent ten years teaching 3rd and 4th grade at Mount View Elementary School. The last three years I have been the K-5 district Literacy Coach. I started this year as the remote teacher for 2nd and 3rd grade at Mount View Elementary School. It will be exciting to work with students from around the district remotely.

I live on a small farm in Troy with my husband and two children, Kate and Will. We have chickens, sheep and a vegetable garden. Kate and Will are very active in travel sports, softball and ice hockey. Kate also plays sports for Mount View High School. So we enjoy supporting their teams on and off the field/ice.

This is my fifth year in the RSU3 district. I spent the first two years teaching 4th and 5th grades at Morse Memorial School, moved over to Troy Central School andhave taught 2nd and 3rd grades since. I'm eager to get to know you and build our virtual classroom community together!

I live on an organic vegetable farm in Etna with my husband, Clayton, step-son, Graham and daughter, Emma. We love to be outside all year round from swimming, to gardening; , to cross country skiing through the woods, we enjoy it all!

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Hello! I've been working for RSU3 for four years now. Before transitioning to my role as a remote teacher, I've enjoyed working with all K-5 students in the district as the Elementary Teacher of Agricultural Projects (aka School Garden Teacher). Prior to this position, I worked as a special education teacher for 16 years.

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New to IXL? These resources will help you hit the ground running!

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Sample of Bears Remote Assignment Schedule

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‎Browse engaging, diverse, non-fiction picture books that kids want to read. Read 450+ original books in English and 150+ in Spanish. Listen to these books narrated in 40+ languages. New books are added all the time. No advertising, in-app purchases, gaming or gimmicks to get in the way of families e...

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Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. Literacy is at the core of a healthy community, so we unite with partners to enable all families to read with their young children.

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This is going to be a very challenging back to school season for all of us. One of the biggest concerns I have heard from many teacher friends is about how to build those important relationships with their students when they are either all virtual or have to maintain social distancing and wear a mask in the classroom.

As we all know, building relationships with our students at the beginning of the year helps them feel more secure, supported, and loved which makes them more likely to want to engage and participate in learning which can lead to less misbehavior.

In this blog post I am sharing some ideas, free downloads, & resources for how to build relationships and connections with your students at the start of the school year whether you are beginning virtually or in the classroom.

1. Send a Welcome Letter, Meet the Teacher Note

The unknown is scary for all of us. This year more than ever both students and parents may be very apprehensive about what the school year will be like. Getting advanced information about who you are and what fun activities you have planned or what to expect when they arrive or log-in on the first day goes a long way in easing those fears.

You can begin to build a relationship with your students before school even starts by sending them a Meet the Teacher and/or welcome letter. Young students love getting something special addressed just to them whether it is through regular mail or email. Telling them about yourself helps students begin to make connections with you. Including a photo of yourself helps give them a visual connection to you as well. They will know who to look for on the first day of school or who to expect to see on the first day of virtual learning.

Sending an accompanying welcome letter with what they will expect to do or see on the first day or week of school eases anxieties. You can also include log-in information for virtual learning or a special invitation for your first Zoom Meeting or Google Meet.

Since I am a strong believer in sending welcome letters prior to the beginning of school, I wanted to make it easier for you to do during this hectic back to school season. Therefore, I created 10 different pre-designed Meet the Teacher & Welcome Letter templates for you in fun themes that will help get students excited about the school year. I also included student gift tags so you can have something special waiting for students on the first day or send it with their take-home packets.

ALL the text is editable so you can continue to use the templates throughout the school year. Change the text for your monthly newsletters, parent communication, Zoom Meeting or Google Meet invitations, class notes, etc. Use the Meet the Teacher form for each student as a get-to-know-you / student of the week activity. Change the text on the gift tag for surprises throughout the school year.

The templates can be print or digital to accommodate in-person and virtual classrooms and I have included both a Google Slides and PowerPoint format for easy editing. Watch this short video to see an example of how to edit the templates.

Here are the themes for the templates. Click any of the links to view more details:

2. Get to Know You Questions (Free)

CLICK HERE to download a list of 30 get to know you questions for young students.

These questions can be used as ice-breakers for the first weeks of school and will help you get to know your students in a fun way.

Students are going to want to talk with their classmates both in the classroom and online. Since they have to be social distanced or in an online meeting this may be difficult. Therefore, it is important to have social time built-in to your schedule to give students an opportunity to talk. Use the get to know you questions during this time to promote discussions.

You can also set up 1:1 virtual or in-person meetings with your students to get to know them better. Use some of the questions to help the conversation along.

3. Use Students' Names as Much as Possible

Say your students' names as much as possible, especially during online meetings. Hearing their name helps students feel better connected to you.

Name Game - This will help you get to know students' names and also assess their letter knowledge. Go through the alphabet and tell students to stand up when they hear the first letter in their name. When they stand up, have them tell the class their name.

4. Make the Rules Together

Students are more likely to follow rules when they have a hand in creating them. Creating the rules together as a class shows your students that you care about their feelings and also value their opinions. It is also a great way to begin to build a classroom community.

Even if you are beginning the year virtually, setting rules together about how to behave during your online meetings will help them run more smoothly.

5. Get Moving, Get to Know Each Other Activity

Since your students may not be able to move freely around your classroom or have to sit in front of a computer, this get to know you game incorporates movement and helps with listening skills. It will also help students see which of their classmates have similar interests as them and also helps you get to know your students.

Ask students questions and have them do specific movements as the answer. For example, say "Do you have any pets? If you do, clap your hands. If you do not, wave.". Students can then look around and see who is doing the same movement as them (this also works during Zoom Meetings if you have it set so all students can see each other).

You can also give 3 choices once students become familiar with how it works. Do you have brothers and sisters? If you have a sister hop on 1 foot. If you have a brother, march. If you have both, jump up & down on both feet.

6. Share Your Favorite Places

Use the virtual background option in Zoom to show some of your favorite places. If you are not using Zoom, show pictures on your whiteboard. Use a different place each day and see if students can guess where you are or where the picture was taken. Then explain why it is one of your favorite places. This not only helps students get to know you better, but it gets them excited about logging in every day and seeing where you are or seeing what the picture is.

If you are recording your distance learning videos in your classroom, show a different place in the room each day.

If you do not know how to use the virtual background in Zoom here are directions:

In the Home section of Zoom, click the Settings button (the gear in the upper right)

Click Virtual Background along the left-hand side.

Click the plus sign to add your own image.

7. Be Real

This year is going to be a learning experience for all of us and there are bound to be mistakes. That's OK! Let students see you make mistakes. Embrace them, laugh about them when appropriate. This will h elp students understand that it's OK not to be perfect and they will be more likely to take risks that increase their learning.

8. Embrace Your Students' Interests

Once you get to know some of your students' interests, talk about them during morning meeting or when you are talking 1:1 with them. Try to incorporate their interests into your lessons or activities.

I hope these ideas were helpful in building relationships with your students. I know this is going to be a crazy & challenging school year, but together we can get through this, lift each other up, and provide students with wonderful learning experiences. If there is anything I can do for you or if you have any questions please feel free to email me at lessonsforlittleones@gmail.com.

You may also like:
Back to School Student Gift Ideas Celebrating Birthdays in the Classroom
Using Birthday Certificates Digitally for Distance Learning

Bucket Filler Activities

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How to Build Relationships with Your Students Virtually & in the Classroom - Lessons for Little Ones by Tina O'Block

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This is going to be a very challenging back to school season for all of us. One of the biggest concerns I have heard from many teacher friends is about how to build those important relationships with their students when they are either all virtual or have to maintain social distancing and wear a mask in the classroom.

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Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TypeTastic ! Opinions are my own!

I'm so excited to tell our many teacher readers about TypeTastic! It's a great, FREE keyboarding program for kids. Yep, you read that right-Sign up now and use will be FREE through at least the 2017-2018 school year. We love that! Parents, there is a free version for you, too!

My kiddo happens to have dysgraphia, which is a fancy way of saying he has a hard time with writing , so I was thrilled to have the chance to check out TypeTastic !

Honestly, though, I think it's so important for every child to learn keyboarding (I'm so old that I still say typing, btw. Anyone else?). I'm sure I don't have to tell you how many jobs and everyday tasks rely on computers these days, and it's an essential skill for success in school.

The TypeTastic! Difference

TypeTastic! is a unique program developed after the creators spent hours in real classrooms watching how kids use keyboards. They discovered that kids see the keyboard differently than grown ups because they have narrower eye spans, shorter fingers, and still developing fine motor skills. Interesting, right?

TypeTastic! uses fun, colorful games with kid appeal to teach keyboarding in a different way. Kids learn the letters from a color coded keyboard that is broken into groups to make the letters easier to memorize.

The games take kids from identifying where the letters are on the keyboard, to typing with a one finger approach, to using the whole keyboard.

This approach has been proven to triple kids' typing speed in as little as three hours. I personally saw my kiddo dramatically improve his fluency after just a couple of lessons. And he didn't even complain (much).

You should know that this program is aimed at elementary students, and I think the games and graphics will most appeal to those in the primary grades. You can check out more information on their about page here!

Try TypeTastic!

The TypeTastic! team wants to make TypeTastic! available for everyone, which is why it's completely free with Coppa compliant ads. Starting is as simple as signing up!

If you're a classroom teacher, they also offer a FREE version that is ad free for the 2017-2018 school year and the foreeeable future. The Ad-free Edition has all the 150+ levels available at TypeTastic .com, just without ads, and more games are already on the way. For more information about TypeTastic! for schools, head here!

If you're a teacher, and you're ready to give it a try, you can simply sign up here!

It works on both computers and tablets (external keyboard optional). There is no installing, plugins, or updates ever. Woot!

About TypeTastic!

TypeTastic ! is part of the typing game family developed by Typing Master Inc, a company founded in the 1980s that now serves over 4 million people a month in over 160 countries. When your students have kickstarted their typing with TypeTastic! you may want to check out the rest of their lineup!

If you're working with younger elementary aged kiddos this year, and you'd like to get them keyboarding Fast (maybe you have limited keyboarding time or limited lab time?), I really do encourage you to check out this program, and I'd love to hear what you think of it! You can sign up for free here!

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Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TypeTastic ! Opinions are my own! I'm so excited to tell our many teacher readers about TypeTastic! It's a great, FREE keyboarding program for kids. Yep, you read that right-Sign up now and use will be FREE through at least the 2017-2018 school year.

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Google transparent animated gif of whatever you need. Click on the one you like (needs to say gif in the bottom corner). It opens in a window on the right of your screen. If you like it, grab it from there, drag it to and hover over the tab of your slide until it opens and drop the gif into your slide. You will never look back...

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Google transparent animated gif of whatever you need. Click on the one you like (needs to say gif in the bottom corner). It opens in a window on the right of your screen. If you like it, grab it from there, drag it to and hover over the tab of your slide until it opens and drop the gif into your slide. You will never look back...