# data[].attributes.headline
Celebrating Skin Tone: The science and poetry of skin color By Katharine Johnson Illustrator: Sheila Hamanaka (5 - 7 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
Celebrating Skin Tone: The science and poetry of skin color By Katharine Johnson Illustrator: Sheila Hamanaka (5 - 7 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The science and poetry of skin color

By Katharine Johnson

Illustrator: Sheila Hamanaka

When I look out at my room full of 1st- and 2nd-grade students, I see a symphony of colors. I see this as beautiful and invaluable. Yet I realize the world does not always embrace my students' multiracial reality. I know that the world will not receive Jamal with his skin the color of summer midnight and his easy laugh the same way it will receive Anita, with her skin the color of late summer wheat and her quiet smile. Young people, like adults, receive countless confusing and negative messages about the implications of skin color. Consistently they get the message that some are better than others-that white trumps black and brown.

Worse than an unwelcoming world is the possibility of an unwelcoming classroom and school. I see racism taking root in the relationships my young learners are establishing. I have had to step in and help my students negotiate their multiracial environment-whether it is stopping a white student from assuming an African American classmate is the one who needs to go with the parent volunteer to work on reading skills, or helping a student of color find a group to join when, once again, she has not been invited into the dramatic play of a group of white girls. Knowing this, I am always on the lookout for learning opportunities that will be accessible and affirming.

When I attended a workshop led by Katie Kissinger demonstrating her approach to celebrating skin tone with her preschool students, I knew I had found a new possibility for beginning to disrupt the skin color prejudice that harms my students on a daily basis. Kissinger's students had celebrated their skin tones and learned about the biological basis of skin color. Young children, like adults, see different skin colors-and assign meaning to these differences. I wanted my students to understand something of the science of skin color in order to challenge the notion that skin color is an indication of anything more than genetic adaptations to one's environment. My aim with this lesson was twofold: First, I wanted students to see their similarities across a skin tone spectrum. This would be the science of skin tone. Second, I wanted them to practice the art of praising their own skin tones as a way to access the connection between skin tone and identity in a positive way. This would be the poetry.

The Science of Skin Tone

I began the lesson by grounding my students in the science of skin tone. Kissinger's own book, All the Colors We Are, offers clear explanations for why people have different skin tones. My students were fascinated by the idea presented in Kissinger's book that all people come in shades of brown. Exclamations like "Yes, why do they call me white? I'm not white. I'm pinkish brownish tannish goldish" peppered the cluster of students gathered on the rug for read-aloud. Kissinger's book presents different skin tones as adaptations to different environments. Imagining the evolution of skin tone over millennia is beyond the scope of most 6- and 7-year-old imaginations, but the idea that our skin has tone to make us a good match for our environment, that our skin tone could be understood as a way to make us stronger, offered my multiracial class a path into this conversation. I also used the book Your Skin and Mine by Paul Showers to introduce key ideas and scientific concepts. Reading each book aloud, I asked students to turn and talk after most pages so they could monitor their own growing understanding. We created a word wall dedicated to words related to skin tone. Melanin, tone, genetic, and heritage all took places of prominence on the wall.

Using the books and students' understanding, we wrote a kid-friendly definition of each term. We defined melanin as the stuff in your body that gives your skin and hair its color. Students came to understand genetics as the recipe for how one's body will be built. After reading these books, my students stood on solid ground with some basic ideas: Skin tone has evolved over time; it is an adaptation to different environments, especially proximity to the equator; and everyone, regardless of how one's "race" is named or misnamed, is a shade of brown.

Once students had some understanding of the science of skin tones, I moved into the language of praise. Following Kissinger's lead again, I stopped by the local hardware store to collect paint chips in dozens of shades of brown and peach and tan. I wanted my 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds to match paint chips to skin tones, just as Kissinger had done with her preschoolers. I gathered the class on the rug so everyone could see me and the paint chips. Holding out the top of my forearm, I laid a paint chip against my skin. "What do you think? Does this look like my skin?" I asked. Thinking aloud, I modeled deciding which chips seemed too dark or too light, which ones had too much blue or too little red. Soon I asked my students to help me in my matching process, finally landing on a good match. I read the name of the color, Caramel Whip, to the group and wrote my name on the back of the paint chip.

Then I released students to explore the chips I had spread around the room. They mingled and chatted, helping each other find a good match for their own skin. To close the day's lesson, all the students shared their chips with the class, to applause after each share. Jessica, who had been frustrated by not finding a perfect match, landed on Saddle Brown with help from a few friends. Fergus went with Beach House, Justin and Tyler both identified with Coconut Grove, and Samantha's color match was called Liberty-a great match for her. I collected their paint chips to use when we transitioned to writing poems.

The Poetry of Skin Tone

I began the writing process by reading Sheila Hamanaka's picture book poem All the Colors of the Earth. First, I simply read the poem aloud slowly, taking time so we could look closely at each illustration. I had students pair-share their favorite pages, and a few shared favorites with the whole class. Jamal was especially fond of the line "the roaring browns of bears and soaring eagles." As soon as he shared that as his favorite line, six or seven hands went down. Apparently this had been a favorite. Raina offered up the line "like caramel and chocolate and the honey of bees."

"Why do you like that one so much?" I asked.

"Those are all sweet," Raina answered. "I think the poem is supposed to make us feel happy and those things make me happy."

Students continued to share new favorites or restate ones that had already been shared for a few more minutes. It was important to me that students have a chance to simply connect with the language and imagery Hamanaka uses. Often the message students receive, especially white students, is that to talk explicitly about difference is to be racist. We needed our exploration of skin color to begin with a gentle, welcoming discussion.

After students connected with the poem, I moved into the craft of writing. I wanted students to begin to think like poets. I tailored my questions toward the moves Hamanaka used, hoping students might be able to replicate those moves. "Sheila Hamanaka uses a lot of comparisons in her poem," I began. "Who remembers one thing she compared skin tone to?" Students called out bears and eagles and seashells and chocolate. I tried to keep up with the flurry of ideas as I recorded their connections on chart paper.

"Sheila Hamanaka chose her comparisons very carefully," I told my class. "How do you think she feels about skin tone based on the comparisons she chose?" I pushed students to recognize that the poem is a praise poem in celebration of skin tone. I reminded students of Raina's idea that the poem makes her happy because Hamanaka compares skin tone to sweet things. Ted thought Hamanaka believes that skin tone makes you strong since she used eagles and bears in her poem. Larry said that the poem made him feel peaceful because it compares skin tone to whispering grass and the ocean.

"How do you feel about your skin tone?" I asked, a little apprehensively. Even though I had laid the path for praise of skin tone, there was still the possibility that some students would have negative concepts of their skin tone and others would claim to have no feelings at all. To maintain a praise focus and offer some additional language support, I suggested that students choose one of the feeling words we had just listed if they did not want to think of their own feeling word. "Happy" and "strong" were the most popular feelings, and that was good enough for us to move forward with the poets' work of comparing.

"What is one thing in the world you can compare your skin to?" We closed that day's lesson with students mingling around the room and sharing their comparisons with as many partners as they could. I listened closely to the partner shares, especially eavesdropping on my students of color. I do not want any of my students to feel under a spotlight or that they need to be representatives of their group. What I realized in my eavesdropping was that my students of color were better able to generate lists of comparisons with their partners than some of my white students. I suspect that white students are less practiced at paying attention to their own skin tone. I used suggestive questions and references to nudge some students toward richer language and also toward celebration.

Jeremy, a first-generation child from Eritrea, suggested his skin was the color of dirt. Jeremy's comparison stirred concern in me. Of all my students of color, he was the most socially isolated in the class. I only knew of one other student who has ever played with Jeremy outside of the structured school day. Other students often complained about having to partner with him or tattled about his behavior in P.E. or in the lunch line. Sitting next to him and seeing his paper with dirt as the lone idea listed, I wondered what his motivation was for that comparison, and I wondered why he seemed at a loss for other ideas.

Rather than admonish him for a potentially negative comparison, I probed his connection: "What type of dirt do you imagine? Is it like fresh soil ready to be planted in a garden or like the rich muddy edges of a pond or like the dry patch in front of the soccer goal?" As an expert soccer player, Jeremy ended up with several references to the types of dirt on the field. I cannot be certain Jeremy's original idea of dirt carried negative connotations for him, but I can attest that his face brightened as he added more ideas to his brainstorming chart and his hand went up to share as we closed the lesson. Fergus, a white student, said he couldn't think of anything other than the color of his paint chip. I sent him over to the area of our classroom library with large full-color science books. "Flip through some nature books and see what you find that reminds you of your skin tone and how you feel about it," I suggested. He came back to his seat 10 minutes later with river stones and prairies for his list. Since Fergus spends every summer fishing with his grandfather in Montana, these seemed like excellent choices.

The next day, I introduced another set of poems in praise of skin tone from the book The Blacker the Berry, by Joyce Carol Thomas. Each of these poems describes one of the many hues of African American skin color, from deep rich browns to red to seemingly white. Thomas uses images from nature and dialogue between children and elders to celebrate skin tone. For example: "I am midnight and berries/I call the silver stars at dusk/By moonrise they appear/and we turn berries into nectar/Because I am dark the moon and stars/shine brighter/because berries are dark the juice is sweeter." Thomas links feelings about skin tone to family, referring to grandparents' advice, motherly love, and heritage: "My mother says I am/Red raspberries stirred into blackberries/Like the raspberries I will always be here/Like the blackberries I was here with the first seed."

For each of these poems, I asked students: "How does Joyce Carol Thomas describe skin tone?" Students added to the chart that we had started with Hamanaka's poem. Thomas' work gave us additional categories: family memories, berries, sky colors, and feelings. Now we had enough poetic moves and categories borrowed from other poets to move into generating student ideas.

I designed a brainstorming template for students to use based on what they had noticed in Hamanaka's and Thomas' poems. Our big categories included: nature, animals, smells, food, and emotions. We gathered on the rug and I showed students a chart paper-sized version of the brainstorming template. "These are some of the ways we noticed other poets described skin tone. Today, we are going to think of our own ideas about how to describe our skin tones."

Then I modeled the process of thinking about how to celebrate and describe skin aloud. I pulled my paint chip from the basket of chips and re-read the name of the color: Caramel Whip. "Where would I put this on my chart?" I asked the class. We agreed it belonged under foods. "Let's see if we can think of any other comparisons for my skin." I looked closely at the back of my forearm and showed it to the students sitting closest to me. "What in nature is like this color?" I wondered aloud. "It looks a little like beach sand," I began and added this idea to the chart in the category Things in Nature. When I asked students for more nature comparisons for my skin color, they called out "bunny fur," "dry grass," and "peaches." All of these went onto the chart.

I wanted students to start thinking about their own skin. "What did you tell your partner yesterday that you compared your skin to?" I told them to share again with a nearby partner. "Who can share their idea?" I asked after a few minutes of partner talk. Many hands went up.

"Cocoa," said Sayla.

"Lovely," I responded. "Where would that idea go on the brainstorming chart?" Working with the students, I modeled placing their ideas onto the chart under the appropriate category. The categories themselves were not that important. My goal was to generate a variety of ideas.

When I felt confident that students had a sense of how to sort their ideas, I released them to work on their own brainstorming charts. "Try to get at least one idea in each section," I recommended as students settled into desks and corners of the carpet to fill out charts.

While students chatted and listed ideas on their brainstorm charts, I again roved and made sure each student came up with ideas celebrating their color. Not every student immediately settled down and brainstormed 10 or 12 poetic images in praise of their skin tone. Many needed one-on-one help to get rolling or to keep going. Neil struggled to come up with ideas, so I paired him with a trusted friend to think together. Katie listed white paper and milk as her skin tone and said she was done. We studied her skin, laying her arm next to mine to see that the pinked-up creaminess of her skin tone had little to do with the name of her race as white. She added strawberries to her milk to get closer to the real tone of her skin and came up with one of my favorite ideas-grilled cheese bread. Jason stared into space from his seat, so I pulled up a chair next to him and reminded him to start with the name of his paint chip. We studied his forearm together and imagined lions with their golden hair shining in the sun and cookie dough. Josie's pencil couldn't move fast enough to list all the browns in the world that her skin reminded her of, so I asked her to share her thinking process with the class. Some students ended up with only two or three ideas, but that was enough to get rolling with the poetry.

Poets as Advisors

Now students were ready to sculpt their ideas into poems. I once again relied on think aloud as a modeling technique. I gathered the students on the rug and reviewed the oversized brainstorm chart we had made as a class the day before. "I am going to take these ideas and turn them into a poem today. You are going to take your ideas and turn them into a poem as well. I need some advice on how to do this. First, I am going to take advice from Sheila Hamanaka and Joyce Carol Thomas." I had a couple of student volunteers read aloud once more the skin tone poems we already knew.

"I think I am going to start my poem with an idea from Sheila Hamanaka," I said as I began writing my poem on chart paper. "I am not going to copy her whole poem, but I want to use one of her ideas as a way to jump into my own poem." I wrote: "I am the colors of the Earth" at the top of the chart paper. Next, I looked back at the chart of brainstormed ideas and dramatically modeled choosing an idea to add to my poem. "I think I will use this one next," I said pointing to dry beach sand. I wrote: "My skin is the color of warm beach sand." "What idea should I write next?" I asked the class. Working together, we drafted four or five lines for my poem.

It was time for students to write their own poems. As a way to remind them of the options we noticed in the model poems, I released them from the rug by asking who wanted to start with which type of idea. "Who thinks they will start with a food comparison?" I asked. "Who wants to include a detail about how your skin is like the skin of someone else in your family? Who wants to start with hair instead of skin? Who wants to start by comparing it to an animal? Tell a neighbor how you will start your poem."

We wrote for the rest of the week. Some days we cranked out longer sessions of 45 minutes of writing and sharing. Once or twice, we simply squeezed in 20 minutes before lunch. But each day that week, students touched this work-writing, rereading, sharing with friends, sharing in small groups, and sharing all together. For students who were ready to stretch as writers, I led a revision lesson on adding more detail to their metaphors. I modeled adding action to the image of an eagle so it became an eagle soaring through the mountains. If students compared their skin to caramel, that caramel could become warm caramel or caramel inside a candy. First- and 2nd-grade metaphors tend toward the cliché, but I wanted them to try to stretch their ideas.

When students seemed satisfied with their poems, we created self-portraits. I let students choose the medium-paints or crayons-that matched how they wanted their portraits to look. Poems and portraits hung in the hallway for several months, the students protesting whenever I wondered if it might be time to take them down.

I know that children see and wonder about skin color. I know that children, even as young as 6, experience racism directed at themselves, their moms, their neighbors, their cousins, the man in front of them in line at the grocery store. I also know that opening my classroom to a discussion about the skin tone differences that we see and the ones that we ignore is one component to disrupting prejudice based on skin color. And I know that this is just the beginning-sharing an experience around loving our skin tones does not suddenly take away the real pain of how the world sees "white" and "black" and "brown" skinned peoples.

The two weeks we spent writing and learning about skin tone opened my classroom in some important ways. Samantha, an African American girl who barely spoke even in morning circle time at the start of the year, read her entire poem aloud to her classmates. Tyler and Justin, one white and one African American, who had never spent free time together before, became friends when they realized they both had skin that matched Coconut Grove. Jeremy, also African American, finished a piece of writing on the same schedule as the rest of the class for the first time.

Maybe Samantha was simply ready to emerge as a more vocal and public presence in the classroom. Maybe Justin and Tyler would have found some other connection and become friends. Maybe the academic support I offered Jeremy finally kicked in. Maybe not. Maybe the discussion of the science of skin tone and the praise of our beautiful differences facilitated these important transformations. I prefer to attribute my students' growth to the poems in celebration of skin tone. Regardless, I plan to continue teaching in ways that might interrupt racist hierarchies and might do so joyfully.

Resources

Hamanaka, Sheila. 1994. All the Colors of the Earth. Morrow Junior.

Kissinger, Katie, and Wernher Krutein. 1994. All the Colors We Are: The Story of How We Get Our Skin Color. Redleaf.

Showers, Paul, and Kathleen Kuchera. 1991. Your Skin and Mine. HarperCollins.

Thomas, Joyce Carol, and Floyd Cooper. 2008. The Blacker the Berry: Poems. HarperCollins.

All the Colors of the Earth

Children come in all the colors of the earth
The roaring browns of bears and soaring eagles,
The whispering golds of late summer grasses,
And crackling russets of falling leaves,
The tinkling pinks of tiny seashells rumbling by the sea.
Children come with hair like bouncy baby lambs,
Or hair that flows like water,
Or hair that curls like sleeping cats in snoozy cat colors.
Children come in all the colors of love,
In endless shades of you and me.
For love comes in cinnamon, walnut and wheat,
Love is amber and ivory and ginger and sweet,
Like caramel and chocolate and the honey of bees,
Dark as leopard spots, light as sand
Children come in all the colors
of the earth and sky and sea.
-Sheila Hamanaka
Copyright 1994 by Sheila Hamanaka. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
My skin is sweet cinnamon mixed with cream.
It's the color of sand dollars on the ocean floor.
It's like spicy sugar.
It's like light caramel
It's also like a heron's neck.
My skin is the lion's eye.
And it's like a slithering viper on freshly mowed grass, pebbles under the desert sun.
My skin is beautiful
like my father's and mother's.
-Teddy

What Color Am I?

I am delicious mocha with a hint of cinnamon
I am warm caramel in the bottom of the bowl
I smell like spice cake baking in the oven
I am a spicy cinnamon latte.
- Sadie

My skin is not white
It is caramel whip,
sandy beaches
and the sound of pebbles under the desert sun
My skin is the warmth of the summer sun
And the promise of a day filled with joy.
-Malcolm

This article appears in our new book, Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An early elementary school teacher combines a science lesson and poetry to encourage children to celebrate their own skin tone and that of their classmates.

# data[].attributes.headline
Color Blind or Color Conscious? How schools acknowledge racial and ethnic identities will affect all students’ educational experiences by BEVERLY DANIEL TATUM (5-7 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
Color Blind or Color Conscious? How schools acknowledge racial and ethnic identities will affect all students’ educational experiences by BEVERLY DANIEL TATUM (5-7 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Color Blind or Color Conscious: Beverly Daniel Tatum

# data[].attributes.headline
Color Blindness: The New Racism? (7-9 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
Color Blindness: The New Racism? (7-9 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Color Blindness: The New Racism? - International Examiner

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For many people, the idea of a color blind society is a laudable and self-evident goal to aspire to. The very phrase evokes iconic images from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, in which he famously declared, “I have a dream that my four little children wil…

# data[].attributes.headline
REPEAT (but, so powerful!) "Powerful Student Care in Two Simple Words" (3-5 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
REPEAT (but, so powerful!) "Powerful Student Care in Two Simple Words" (3-5 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Powerful Student Care in Two Simple Words

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Educators can make sure students feel distinctive and irreplaceable in every classroom.

# data[].attributes.headline
14 Online Teaching Tools to Enrich Your Virtual Classroom (5 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
14 Online Teaching Tools to Enrich Your Virtual Classroom (5 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2020 has been a transformative year. Everything has changed, including the way kids and university students go to school.

During the pandemic, most of the world instated social distancing rules, 20-second hand-washing practices and preventive mask-wearing in public. To say this affected the way educators and students interact is an understatement.

In March, millions of children transitioned from face-to-face classrooms to some kind of virtual education set up at home.

During the first months of the pandemic, teachers had to scramble and find the best ways to set up a virtual classroom that would keep their students engaged.

During these months, educators at every level tested tools and programs until they found their favorites. We scanned the web to find out what those are.

For this article, we've collected 15 versatile online teaching tools to enrich your classroom.

Visme is an online design tool that anyone can use to create presentations, infographics, concept maps, schedules, reports and more.

It's packed with tons of features, like free photos and graphics, customization options and an easy drag-and-drop editor that both non-designers and designers love to use.

Many tools are directed either at the educator or the student. In the case of Visme, our integrated design tools benefit both.

How Visme Can Help Teachers

Teachers are always creating content for their students to learn with-from slide presentations to fillable worksheets and more. With a Visme education license, teachers and students can use the tool together for a creative and interactive educative experience.

Below are some of the solutions Visme offers for educators at any level.

Interactive content as presentations and infographics

Visual posters and infographics

Webinar materials

Interactive schedules

Syllabus and lesson plans

Printable lists and worksheets

Embed third-party content like quizzes and forms

Share news about a class on social media or email

Personalized report cards

Personalized certificates

Sign up. It's free.

To help you get started, here are some handpicked Visme templates for teachers. Click on the button below each template to customize it for your own use.

Class Schedule Template

Create a class schedule in the form of a presentation and share it with your students to help them stay on track with their weekly lessons.

This class schedule template is designed with engaging colors and visuals to make it easier for students to remember the information.

Lesson Plan Template

Use a template to create a fully visual lesson plan to share with your students.

Simply input all your information and download it as a PDF or image. It's easy to then import into your LMS or send it to students via email.

Report Card Template

At the end of each semester, show students their grades by adding a little fun.

Use this report card template to input each student's final results and inspire them to continue performing well for the rest of the year.

Certificate of Completion Template

If your course isn't part of a school curriculum, you can still instill a sense of accomplishment in your students with a certificate of completion or achievement certificate.

Use this template to add your course information and personalize it with the student's name.

How Visme Can Help Students

Visme also helps students get their work done for their online classes. Teachers can assign all sorts of assignments to be created with the tool.

Below are some ways students can use Visme:

Here are some useful Visme templates for students at the school or university level. Click on the button below each template to customize it for your own use.

Idea Web / Mind Map Template

Students thrive with graphic organizers and visual mind mapping tools. Visme makes it easy and fun to create idea webs, flowcharts and mind maps. This idea web template is perfect for finding similarities between two different topics.

Presentation Template

Research projects and book reports have been assigned as presentations since we can all remember. Help your students create better presentations with our Visme templates for students.

Timeline Infographic Template

Many assignments involve understanding how things happened over time. This type of visual can be apple to projects for history, literature, and social studies.

By creating a timeline infographic, students understand the process of the topic and enjoy creating it along the way.

WIth Visme you can also create any type of graphic organizer from scratch using the free design tools that come built-in with the editor.

Watch the video below to learn more about graphic organizers and how to create one.

2 Google Classroom

Google Classroom is the low-key most versatile online teaching tool available.

This Learning Management System (LMS) is part of G Suite, which means teachers can use Google apps to create lessons, quizzes and documents all inside Google Classroom.

To use the Google Classroom app, you'll need a G Suite for Education account. Many schools and teachers transitioned to this LMS when schools were closed due to the pandemic.

For anyone using Google products regularly, Google Classroom is easy to tackle. Inside the app, educators offer the content for the lessons, quizzes, assessments, and tests. They can also communicate with the students and parents via message boards or email.

The best thing about Google Classroom is that you can create all the content for your classes with the software of your choice. For example, you can simply use Google apps to prepare lesson materials or import any visual created with Visme.

In 2020, Google Classroom is easier to integrate with Google Meet, the new version of Google Hangouts. This has made it even easier to conduct an online class.

You might know Zoom from business meetings but did you know that it also works great for online teaching?

There are two ways of using Zoom; Meetings and Webinars. The most suited for interactive online teaching is Zoom Meetings, while Zoom Webinars is better for lectures. Teachers can choose with which to work at any given time.

Zoom Meetings have practical features that make online teaching easier, such as breakout rooms. These help teachers separate the students into groups, much like you would do in a normal classroom setting.

Each group can communicate with each other and the teacher can be notified to come in and help if needed. Since Zoom became so popular for distance learning, many other online teaching tools have incorporated seamless integrations.

4 A Web Whiteboard App

AWW App is the perfect solution for teachers that are used to having a board to write on during class. This is a digital whiteboard where teachers can annotate much like on a regular board.

The integration between AWW and Zoom makes it easier than ever to teach a class online. You can also import PDF and PowerPoint files into AWW.

This app is great for teachers that enjoy explaining things by showing how it's done.

The boards can be pre-created before a lesson or written on during the lecture. The settings permit students to collaborate or "come up to the board."

Ted Talks are a great resource for online teaching. We wouldn't exactly call it a tool, but more of a repository.

Ted's website offers videos of 18-minute speeches by influential speakers on a variety of topics. There are even some Ted talks by kids, which can be greatly inspiring for students.

Best of all, every talk is free to include in lessons. The videos can be embedded or shared with a link. They're easy to incorporate with any LMS.

Dialpad has a VoIP for education solution that provides an easy to use application for schools where teachers & students can meet, text, chat, and interact online.

Students can engage with teachers within virtual classrooms using screen sharing, whiteboarding, and chat features. Teachers can also set office hours, share class recordings, and connect with the faculty all within the same platform.

Dialpad is accessible on a variety of devices, including tablets, smartphones, computers, and laptops. Using Dialpad helps to reduce IT overhead for schools, and removes the requirement for hardware.

Teachers can meet students remotely, and create online classes instantly from anywhere in the world. They can also send out bulk SMS messages to check in with students on assignments, send updates, and announcements. Schools can set up advanced call routing rules for students to reach the correct department or desk, so teachers never have to worry about missing important phone calls.

There are so many features available on Dialpad, that we couldn't even fit all of them here. For teachers interested in an all-in-one application, Dialpad offers a free 14 day trial.

7 LightSail

One of the most challenging things to keep up with is your students' literacy progress. This is true both online and in face-to-face classrooms.

LightSail is a program that has already been showing positive results in classrooms. Now, with the spread of online learning, their team has adapted to educative solutions provided.

The LightSail app provides students with a variety of reading material to improve their literacy. The app tracks how much each student reads and how they are improving.

Teachers can create lesson plans around what their students enjoy reading, be it a book, or a website. Everything the student reads can be turned into a learning opportunity.

A big part of school education is communicating with both students and parents. This is no different when the learning is being done online.

The Remind App is an advanced messaging system that works in three different ways:

Reminders for upcoming lessons or due dates of projects and tests

Email messaging with students and parents

Direct messaging with parents of students

The main feature of Remind is that all notifications are sent to mobile devices, making it easier for teachers to interact with students and parents.

The app can be integrated with Google Classroom and Google Drive for easy access to class materials. Also, it's easy to send links to Zoom meetings and webinars.

Teachers can set up office hours for timely messaging and control over their private lives.

Pear Deck is the perfect add-on for teachers who regularly use Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint. It improves interactivity and the quality of visuals on the teacher's slides.

The add-on is available in the editor and also includes a teacher platform to help keep track of student participation during class.

When you open the PearDeck add-on in your Google Slides or Microsoft Powerpoint software, it's available in a sidebar. All the features are accessible from right inside the editor and can improve your presentations to a great degree.

10 Actively Learn

The Actively Learn website is a specialized platform to teach ELA, Science and Social Studies. It's easily integrated with most LMS like Google Classroom and Canvas.

What stands out about Actively Learn is the way the readings are set up for both students and teachers. It's the perfect platform for blended learning, and just as easy to use as an online learning teaching tool.

Each article, video or book excerpt has a set of questions, vocabulary features and further reading for the student. The features for teachers include suggested lesson plans and further assignments.

Padlet is a multifunctional platform to collect information, visuals, videos, documents and much more. Users can create "padlets" or digital corkboards to create collections of data and information pretty much any way they want.

Teachers can use padlets to build group lessons, work on group projects, collate research for a lecture, and much more.

Padlet is one of the favorites in the online teaching world and it's no surprise why. Here is an article with a long list of ideas for teachers using Padlet.

12 Thinglink

Thinglink is a platform dedicated to the creation of interactive visuals. You can add interactive elements like audio, text popups and map location labels to any of the following:

This is one of the most immersive online teaching software. You can even create VR-ready environments for students to explore at their leisure.

13 Edpuzzle

Edpuzzle is an app that takes any video and turns into an educational lesson. Teachers simply add their chosen video, set it up for students with questions about the content and assign it to them via their regular LMS.

Edpuzzle integrates with Google Classroom and many other LMS platforms as well.

A notable feature of Edpuzzle is that teachers can easily track student progress. The settings can be toggled for the video and to make added questions unskippable.

Edpuzzle is the perfect accompaniment for the flipped classroom method, both in face-to-face and virtual classrooms.

14 Quizizz

Quizizz is a free quiz maker for students of any age. If you don't want to create your own quiz, there are lots of available quizzes in the gallery that are free to use.

Integrate your quiz seamlessly with Google Classroom or share it with a link. You can also share it as a game and send the link to the Remind app and other online teaching tools.

Considering that Quizizz has been used in regular classrooms for a while, the transition of the tool to online teaching was seamless.

15 Talking Points

Talking Points is a communication platform for teachers and families. It's similar to the Remind app but the most important feature is that the messages are translated to the family's language.

The app supports more than 100+ languages. Each family picks their home language (if they don't speak English) and all messages will arrive in the chosen language.

The app works on all mobile devices and is free for teachers.

16 Brighterly

Brighterly.com is a fantastic online resource for children's math education. This platform goes beyond traditional math learning by incorporating fun and engaging math riddles for kids. With interactive classes and a team of professional math tutors, Brighterly caters to students in grades 1 through 8.

Whether your child is in the early grades or tackling more advanced math concepts, Brighterly is dedicated to helping them excel academically. Their commitment to teaching math concepts, combined with the inclusion of enjoyable math riddles, ensures a well-rounded and effective learning experience.

What Are Your Favorite Online Teaching Tools?

Teaching online in a virtual classroom is easier than it seems-the difficult part is getting used to it. Once you have the tools you need to be efficient and engaging, every lesson is easier than the one before it.

Most of the online teaching tools in this list can be used with Visme. Simply upload your Visme creations to your preferred tool and you've got the perfect combination.

Sign up for a free Visme account and take your virtual classroom to the next level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
15 Online Teaching Tools to Enrich Your Virtual Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Keeping students engaged online can be challenging. Check out this list of the best online teaching tools to take your virtual classroom to the next level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

# data[].attributes.headline
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade THREE

# data[].attributes.subject
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade THREE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

# data[].attributes.headline
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade FOUR

# data[].attributes.subject
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade FOUR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

# data[].attributes.headline
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade FIVE

# data[].attributes.subject
Eureka Math Vocabulary Cards: Grade FIVE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

# data[].attributes.headline
Click here for professional learning opportunities and opportunities for students! (2 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
Click here for professional learning opportunities and opportunities for students! (2 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.headline
OSI Department of Digital Innovation Update Fall Technology Package (Lots of Helpful Links and Resources) 3 minute skim; 10-15 minute read

# data[].attributes.subject
OSI Department of Digital Innovation Update Fall Technology Package (Lots of Helpful Links and Resources) 3 minute skim; 10-15 minute read

# data[].attributes.headline
Employee Assistance Program in a Nutshell (3 slides - 3-5 minute read)     

# data[].attributes.subject
Employee Assistance Program in a Nutshell (3 slides - 3-5 minute read)     

# data[].attributes.headline
The Power of Relationships (3 minute WATCH!)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Power of Relationships (3 minute WATCH!)

# data[].attributes.headline
Inspirational Video- Be a Mr. Jensen- MUST WATCH!! (3 minute WATCH)

# data[].attributes.subject
Inspirational Video- Be a Mr. Jensen- MUST WATCH!! (3 minute WATCH)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Inspirational Video- Be a Mr. Jensen- MUST WATCH!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Enjoy these quick back-to-school prompts as you get to know one another, adjust to a new schedule, and think about your goals and plans for the year.

Getting to know you

Listen to a selection of Author Name Pronunciations. Ask students to write down what stands out to them. What do they most notice about the recordings they listen to? Are they funny, poignant, informative? Then have students write and record their own name pronunciations, using the ones they listened to as inspiration.

Icebreaker ideas

Listen to Lisa Yee's Meet-the-Author Recording for Katana at Superhero High. Then ask everyone to share what their superpower would be. After they offer their responses, ask students what their *actual* superpower is - are they super kind? Super prompt? Super smart?

Listen to the audiobook excerpt for Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl, featuring a character who collects porcupine neckties. Ask students what collections they have, or what collections they would like to start.

Writing and thinking

Play this video book reading from School's First Day of School, which features the school's point of view. After watching, have students write about the first day of school from the perspective of something inanimate, like their desk, locker, bedroom, alarm clock, etc.

Listen to the Meet-the-Author Recording for New Kids and Underdogs. Ask students these two questions:

1) If you had to "write what you know," what would you write about?

2) If you had to research something you don't know much about yet, what would your topic be?

What's working for you?

We'd love to hear how you're using TeachingBooks resources in your classrooms and libraries! Leave your ideas in a comment below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fun Discussion & Activity Prompts to Start the School Year

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Enjoy these quick back-to-school prompts as you get to know one another, adjust to a new schedule, and think about your goals and plans for the year.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Exit Tickets: Plan, Analyze, and Adjust" (3-4 minute read)

# data[].attributes.subject
"Exit Tickets: Plan, Analyze, and Adjust" (3-4 minute read)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Exit Tickets are quick formative assessments that can help you make instructional decisions effectively. But with so many other lesson components, assessments, and responsibilities to juggle, you might find yourself wondering whether Exit Tickets are worth the time and effort. In my experience, they are a valuable investment that informs planning and helps support all students in learning the grade-level content. Let's explore how to use Exit Tickets efficiently for maximum benefit.
Do the math! Know what the Exit Ticket should tell you.
To prepare for the student work you are likely to see, consider working through the Exit Ticket yourself. As you do so, think about the different ways that students might do the math. What strategies might they use? What mistakes might they make? What can those possible approaches and missteps tell you about students' understanding of the math? The time you take to do the math and to think about how students might engage with the problems will pay off because you'll be able to quickly analyze the student data later.

In addition, doing the math helps guide your instruction for the lesson. You can adjust your instruction in the moment because you know the desired outcome and the stumbling blocks that students might encounter. You'll also be equipped to make smart customization decisions: what to emphasize, adapt, or omit from the lesson to meet the needs of your students, to maintain pacing, and to meet lesson objectives.
Quickly review students' Exit Ticket work.
Have students complete the Exit Ticket at the end of the lesson. The Exit Ticket is intended to be a quick assessment of how well students have met lesson objectives and should take about 3-5 minutes. Once you have evaluated students' work, sort Exit Tickets into three categories: Got It, Almost Got It, and Not Yet.

Let's consider the work of three students on a sample Exit Ticket from Grade 2. In this Exit Ticket, s must find 9+6 and 8+5.
Got It: Student demonstrates conceptual understanding of the lesson outcomes.
The Got It category is for work that is correct or mostly correct. Student work that falls into this category might include small errors that are unrelated to the concept. As you sort work into the Got It category, think about the different strategies students used to succeed with the math. This example shows work from a student who successfully decomposed numbers to make use of the make a ten strategy.
Almost Got It: Student shows basic misconceptions.

The Almost Got It category is for work that shows evidence of one or two basic misconceptions. Errors in the work indicate that the student needs more practice to solidify understanding but does not have larger learning gaps. As you sort work into the Almost Got It category, think about the errors you see and what concepts or strategies you can ask about or reinforce in coming lessons to help students resolve the errors and move on in the learning. This example shows work from a student who understands that the problem requires decomposing a number and knows how to make ten but doesn't consistently decompose numbers correctly.

In response, you might build on the student's ability to make ten and then help the student think about how making ten affects the addends. Consider asking students how they know their answer is reasonable. For instance, should the first problem have a sum that is greater than or less than ? You may also want to challenge the student's use of the equal sign in the second problem.

Not Yet: Student shows deeper misconceptions.

The Not Yet category is for work showing misunderstandings that indicated larger learning gaps. As you sort work into the Not Yet category, think about the students' misconceptions and how you'll address them. This example shows work from a student who attempts to make a ten as the problem requires but does not decompose the other addend.

In response, consider having the student focus on the reasonableness of the answer or check the answer by another method. You may build from the success of finding the partner to ten and use number bonds to help the student think through the rest of the work.
Make instructional decisions.
Reflect on the overall work of the class. As you consider the data, keep in mind that Exit Tickets are formative assessments meant to inform instruction. They are not meant to be measures of proficiency but of progress toward proficiency. Don't just focus on student errors; also note student strengths. Celebrate success! Share the successes with students and build on those successes in the lessons that follow to push learning further or to correct misconceptions.

If most students do well on the Exit Ticket, correct small errors with a quick note or a question to advance student thinking. Even if you have many students in the Almost Got It and Not Yet categories, that does not necessarily mean you should reteach, extend the lesson, or even review the entire Exit Ticket with the whole class. What should you do then? Use the data to incorporate in upcoming instruction the specific skills and concepts that students still need to practice. Consider the following approaches:

Targeted Fluency Practice

Is there a foundational skill that caused trouble for most of the class? If so, consider using fluency activities to continue to build this skill. For example, consider planning a fluency activity focused on decomposing to make ten.

Lesson Customization

Consider highlighting or reiterating concepts in the context of another lesson. In future lessons, incorporate scaffolding questions or additional steps to highlight skills that students may need to focus on to make progress on the path to mastery. For example, consider including discussion questions about whether the way an addition problem is adjusted maintains the same sum.

Small Group Instruction

If a subset of the class makes similar conceptual errors, consider addressing those errors in a small group setting if you have the structures in place to do so. Work with these small groups of students to correct misconceptions.

While these are excellent ways to customize lessons to meet student needs, these methods are not always necessary. Remember that proficiency comes over time. Eureka Math is designed so that students usually have opportunities to engage with math concepts again in upcoming lessons. Often, no specific intervention is needed. Instead, use what you learn from examining student work on the Exit Tickets to bring certain concepts or procedures to the forefront when they appear in future lessons.

Exit Tickets are a powerful and informative instructional tool. The more you use them, the more you'll find them helpful to hone instruction and meet the needs of all students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore how to use Eureka Math Exit Tickets efficiently for maximum benefit.

# data[].attributes.headline
Conferences: Parent Conference Teacher Support Guide, Releasing Conferences

# data[].attributes.subject
Conferences: Parent Conference Teacher Support Guide, Releasing Conferences