Distance Learning for Kindergarten: What We're Doing

Hi everyone!

Hope your distance learning is going well!

Many of you have been asking if I could share what I am doing for distance learning so I'm finally sitting down to write a blog post about it!

GENERAL INFO

At our school, our divisions were asked to works as a team and provide the same materials for each grade.  So at my school, we have 8 educators collaborating each week.

We have set up a Google Site (not sharing the link to this, sorry!) with..

HOME - Which has a welcome note to our families and a link to our school technology website (recommending apps and websites by grade).

WEEKLY ACTIVITIES - Where we upload our weekly placemats every Sunday.

READING - Tips on reading with kids at home, including a reading strategies chart and a "Practicing Comprehension Questions at Home" handout.

Click here or on the image below to download this comprehension hand out for free!

Reading strategy poster can be found in my "Kindergarten Reading Strategies: Lessons + Posters for Emergent Readers" pack here.

MATH - A break down of each strand in parent friendly language and suggestions of activities they could do to practice these at home.

WRITING - A short summary on Kindergarten writing encouraging inventive spelling.

SIGHT WORDS - Some suggestions for practicing sight words and the Dolch pre-primer and primer sight word lists.

Click here or on the image below to download these sight word lists for free!

MUSIC - A link to our music teacher's website

LIBRARY - A link to our librarian's website.

GYM - A link to our gym teacher's website.

The only thing we change each week is we upload the new placemat and corresponding (optional) printables to the "WEEKLY ACTIVITIES" page.  On Sunday nights we send out an email to the parents letting them know that the placemats are up.

The suggestion is that students and parents try as many activities as they want and send at least one picture to us by email.  One of the educators will then respond to the email with some descriptive feedback.

I wasn't sure if this was going to be enough, but our parents have been giving us amazing feedback and have been very grateful for the ease of this format!

WEEKLY COLLABORATION

To make choosing activities together each week as painless as possible, I made a Google Doc and shared it with the rest of the team.  The Google Doc has a table for each section (e.g. Alphabet, Sight Words, Shared Reading etc.) and we go in and add ideas as we see them/think of them.

Then on Thursday nights we have been meeting on Google Meet and we choose activities for that week.  We all look at the google doc before the meeting and have a few ideas in mind for each section so that the process goes as fast as possible!

After our Google Meet, I finalize the placemats and then upload them to our Google Site by Sunday afternoon so it is ready for everyone by Sunday night!

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 1:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for April 6-10 by clicking here or on the image below:

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 2:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for April 14-17 by clicking here or on the image below:

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 3:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for April 20-24 by clicking here or on the image below:

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 4:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for April 27-May 1 by clicking here or on the image below:

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 5:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for May 4-8 by clicking here or on the image below:

*The "Design a Medical Mask" worksheet was inspired by @jarrett_lerner's printable and is being shared with permission from him!

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 6:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for May 11-15 by clicking here or on the image below:

PLACEMAT FOR WEEK 7:

You can download a copy of our placemats and the corresponding printables for May 19-22 by clicking here or on the image below:

I'll be adding more weeks when I am able to! Follow me on Instagram or check this post periodically if you are interested in seeing what we are doing!

Also I had many requests to add an editable template of our placemats so you can download that by clicking here or on the image below (you will need PowerPoint to open the file).

Hope that was helpful!

- Yukari

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

(Added April 16, 2021):

1. Do you sell the poems in a package? I need more!

I don't a set exactly like the ones that are in these placemats, but I do have sight word poems in my store that are similar! You can find them here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fill-in-the-Blank-Sight-Word-Poems-for-Kindergarten-5914838

2. So these placemats are for asynchronous time. What do you do for synchronous time?

So the only time I was online (March 2020-June 2020) we didn't have the same requirements as now and we only did one Google Meet a week. I have been on a leave since, but have been creating Google Slides for teachers based on requests from current virtual teachers.

The Google Slides I get the most feedback on as being useful for synchronous time are my math slides! There are lesson slides, practice slides and centre slides included so you can do some during your synchronous math block and then assign some for asynchronous work too!

Here is a link to all of my math Google Slides if you are interested in taking a look: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/A-Pinch-Of-Kinder-Yukari-Naka/Category/DIGITAL-Math-485608

I've gotten the most positive feedback on these non-standard measurement slides: