I have been using GIFs for quite some time now and when I discovered about inserting GIFs into PPT Slides, it creates a very fun slides presentation.

You can find GIFs mostly on Giphy https://giphy.com/stickers and this website has TONS of GIFs that you can search for. From Hello to Goodbye. But of course if the one that you search for doesn't appear, well, YOU CAN CREATE ONE :) in the website. The GIF maker supports YouTube URL so you can just simply insert the URL and set the time and duration that you want. There you have a GIF that you can insert in ur PPT. 

The reason why I use GIFs is because moving/animated images attracts children and keep their eyes on the screen! Plain words and static images in ur ppt slides can make children feel bored after some time... so GIF it away! Have fun trying! :)

Quick Tutorial Video below:

We've started using Kahoot! as one of the ways to assess our children after the lesson. It is a very fun online quiz that allows children to answers questions as if they are playing a game! The parents of my children told me that their children enjoyed playing the quiz so much!

But you can only create closed-ended questions such as multiple choice and yes/no.

It helps me a lot because some of my lesson focuses on recognizing the vocabularies so I can just put a picture and a question and in the multiple choice I'll put words. The children can just match the word to the picture and click on the correct answer.

*One more thing, parents don't have to create an account before playing. Once they got the link, they can just enter their name and start playing!

It is very easy to create and most importantly, fun!

Please turn off the sound too. Sorry about the barking sounds of my dogs. Haha. 

Click here to go to StoryJumper now!

Through this online learning, parents would know what their child has learnt and how much their child has learnt in deep. For the assessment part, I felt really touched, parents are willing to do the video recording or taking photos when their child is reading or do some task, for example, children able to point the words that saying by parents, children able to arrange the numbers in order and more. From the video, I can see parents are really put their effort into guiding their child to achieve the learning objectives. One of the parents send a voice message to me, her daughter cannot arrange the numbers in order. From the voice message and video, I heard her voice, she was sick, but she keeps guiding her daughter to arrange the numbers in order until the child get some improvement. Some of the parents looked a bit frustrated when guiding their child because their child not in the “learning mode”. 

From that, I can see every child has their own learning pace, sometimes adults including me are too “nervous” and want to see the outcomes immediately and forget they need time to absorb the knowledge. They need to build their own schemas and construct own understanding during the process of learning. Their learning method may be varied to the others. One teaching method is no guaranteed can be suited for all children. So, teacher and parents need to find the adapted ways to guide the child. Therefore, the collaborative relationships between parents and teacher is important to help and support children optimal learning and development. Teachers play important role to help family members enhance their understanding of their child and support family members in the continuing development of their skills as parents.

When I am still finding the other child to join the online class, the mother who wants to quit from online class suddenly message to me again, she will still let the child continue the online class until really can’t afford to continue the lesson. At that moment, I felt touch and happy because of the mother show supportive to me. At the same time, there was a news release the kindergarten will reopen on 1st of July. That day, my mood was like a roller coaster, go down, go up and go down again. 

School reopen is good. But will all the children come back to school? From the survey that had done by Tadika Sing Ang Tong. Most of the parent support go back to the school but they also worried about their child “safety”. They are worried about the children cannot follow some of the preventive ways such as keeps the distance between the peers, and wear the mask properly. The school will be facing another challenges to keep the children “safe” and adapt to the new norm of daily routine. Besides that, how to cater to the emotion of the child after the pandemic also needs to be considered. It is important to let children know, teachers and peers do not hug you, not because we do not love you because of protect you. May be can have a new greeting way. Children only can learn when they feel safe and secured. Another words, feeling safe makes learning possible. The school needs to do a lot of preparations for reopening especially in children matter.

You have download the app in your phone and create an account in the app first. Then you can link your Bitmoji to Google Chrome, where you can straight copy the images of your Bitmoji.

Worksheets may good for evaluate the child’s writing skills or check their understanding on some particular topic but it cannot be used to evaluate their learning and speaking and some of the areas such as physical and social-emotional.  Besides giving worksheets, during MCO, teachers are putting effort into doing the teaching video. But, how many children really watch those of the videos? For those who live together with grandparents, one of the grandmothers told me she was not familiar to use the electronic devices, then her granddaughter actually not follow the task given by the teacher. However, some of the parents really follow the requirements of the teachers. Some of them even take and edit the video nicely about their child’s learning at home and give it to the teacher. 

            If it is possible, maybe blended learning can try to overcome some of the issues of the child do not follow the “track” of study. Synchronous and asynchronous learning need to carry out parallel. Synchronous learning can be referred to as learning through a virtual classroom. Through the virtual classroom such as Zoom and google meet, teachers at least can hear the voice of the children, carry out a conversation with them and play with them.

            There was always have reasons for me to avoid to touch the part of home visiting. Although I know that it is good and it is one of the effective ways to get to know the families. Home visits can help to create strong, positive communication between teacher and parents and encourage parents more involved in the school’s activities or classroom activities that facilitate the child’s learning. Meanwhile, parents will know and more understand what is the purpose, learning outcomes or expectations of every “homework” that assigned by the teacher through Wechat. For this critical time, it’s time to change my mind and take a step forward to visit and concern the children and their families especially for those who live with the grandparents.