Riveting Resources: Pt. 2
Looks like I’m shooting for one post a month for now-I had high hopes of more frequent posts but no such luck between virtual teaching and masters classes! Can’t complain though, the school year is getting smoother AND I have a 4.0 in my master’s program so far! Hope you all are still enjoying my posts as they come, and I really hope part two of this blog post series will be helpful to the parents reading my blog!
Here’s part two: Parent resources and tips
Disclaimer for this post-I am in no way trying to speak as if I am a parent, but providing parents with some tips to help your children during virtual learning from a teacher’s perspective, as well as some resources I have found that I feel could be helpful.
Tip 1-Technology breaks:
Speaking from a teacher’s perspective, it is crucial that any time during the school day that your child has a break in learning, they should make sure to step away from all electronics. Your children are on the computer learning for hours on end, and those breaks should not be consumed with other kinds of electronics like phones, TVs, etc. Encourage your child to go outside to play, exercise in some way, or even do a puzzle. As an adult teaching for hours on end in front of the computer, those breaks from electronics are so important to me. They allow me to feel refreshed and ready to come back to the computer to teach the next subject, so I can only imagine how much the children need these breaks as well.
Tip 2- Teaching your child to advocate for themselves:
Especially in a virtual settings, older students need to be able to advocate for themselves. When I say advocate-I mean ask questions, speak up when they don’t understand something, check their grades and inquire if something is missing but they think they turned it in….the list goes on and on. The most important thing you can do as a parent is to encourage these interactions from your child with the teacher. If your child has a question or shows, after school hours, that they do not understand a concept that was taught in class, encourage them to message or email the teacher. Personally, I would prefer to see the child asking the questions because this shows that they are comfortable with me as their teacher and it is a great way to teach them to advocate for themselves. Obviously I am not discouraging you as a parent from being in contact with the teacher, but promoting self advocacy to your child at an early age can help them as they grow up. Advocacy is a much more difficult skill to teach if your child has never had any experience with how to advocate for themselves.
Resource 1-Chromebook Shortcuts:
The county I teach in provided Chromebooks for all the students to use for virtual learning. I know some parents may be familiar with Chromebooks, while others are not. A parent recently asked me if I had a document with the different shortcuts for a Chromebook (since some are different from a desktop) so I thought it would be a great resource to provide parents with here! Click below to go to the shortcuts.
Resource 2-Stress Relievers
Stress can be felt by people of all ages, which can include your children. During these trying times, your children could be feeling more stress than usual, so providing them with some ways to let out their stress, or cope with it, will benefit them as well as your household. This could be in the form of exercise, playing games, practicing mindfulness strategies (I have been teaching some to my students and can share if anyone is interested-drop a comment below!), or even homemade aromatherapy play-dough! Shout-out to my mom for finding this recipe and I can’t wait to try it because it sounds like a wonderful stress reliever that I am going to make for sure!! This would be a fun thing to make with your kids AND playing with it can be a great way to relieve stress. (click below for the recipe!)
This is just a start of tips and resources from a teacher’s perspective for the parents out there during this pandemic! As I come across more, I will definitely share. It’s my goal to help parents, children, teachers, etc. in any way I can with the information I have! I have two requests though for those of you reading:
Please comment below or go to the contact page if you have any topic suggestions for upcoming blog posts. I have more ideas, but would love to write about what you all WANT to read!
I am not a parent, but speaking as a teacher, there are honestly days where I have very little motivation to sign onto Zoom to teach because it is so exhausting staring at a computer screen for so many hours in a day. If a teacher is feeling this way, I can only imagine how a child could be feeling. I wouldn’t even know where to begin with ideas or suggestions, so I would love to hear from my parent readers about ways you are motivating your child to consistently be logging into the virtual classroom (and STAYING logged in). Feel free to comment below this blog post and share-I’m sure other parents reading would really appreciate the suggestions (plus if I have parents asking me as a teacher for suggestions, I would love to have some to provide them that come from other parents!).
