Even though students in Melissa Smith’s fifth-grade remote class at Las Sendas Elementary School aren’t in the same physical classroom, they start their day like all students — bonding with their classmates.
Students begin at 8 a.m., and spend the first 15 minutes of the morning engaging with each other. They discuss their drawings, artwork and interesting artifacts. One student even shared his crystal collection.
Live class sessions end between 10:30 and 10:45 a.m. and then Melissa connects individually with her 30 students. She shares that the minute students sign on, she greets them with The Name Game Song, because students love hearing their name and it sets a positive tone for their virtual space.
Navigating the Virtual Classroom
Melissa has been teaching for 18 years and says remote instruction is very different from being in the classroom. Her students spend a great deal of time on the screen, and she is always looking for creative ways to provide non-screen learning opportunities.
Melissa shares that students learning via remote can feel isolated and sad. To ease some of the stress and tension in her students, she created some interesting learning opportunities, using science and STEM.
“When I decided to teach remotely, I knew that I wanted to be good at it so that I could provide students with great learning experiences,” Melissa said. “I have to be flexible and willing to change things up so I can meet them where they are. I wanted to make learning fun and to do something a little bit different that is offscreen and hands on.”
During a brainstorming session, Melissa got the idea to put science and STEM kits together to engage her students. Parents donated Amazon gift cards to fund the project. Her goal was to have the kits ready for her students’ return from holiday break.
Melissa created nine science lessons and nine STEM activities. Each kit contains everything students need to participate in the activities, right down to real magnifying glasses, science notebooks, owl pellets and certified scientist laboratory lanyards.
“Every week, my students have a well-planned science experiment and a creative STEM activity that are not only fun, but provide an outlet for practicing the engineering process.”
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