How Families Can Prepare for Hybrid or Distance Learning

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Welcome to my class. I look forward to working with you and your child this year. Let’s embark on our new learning adventure, navigating hybrid and distance learning, with a positive outlook and the realization that we will all need to be flexible to create a positive learning experience for the children. With that in mind, I would like to share with you a resource to assist you as you work to establish an effective learning environment for your child/children at home. This resource was created by Dr. Nancy Sulla, the creator or IDE (Innovative Designs for Education), a corporation which provides professional development to our school district. After reading this material and watching a few of her webinars, I had a better sense of how to set expectations, how to set up a balanced schedule and how to organize a learning space for my own daughter. I hope you find this information helpful. 

In the future,  I plan on communicating with parents and guardians through email. 
I’m looking forward to a wonderful year together!
Ms. O’Brien

Summer Science Sites

This Google Slide presentation lists Science activities to keep you busy over the summer. Mrs. Levine created it for our last week of school. 

Mommy Poppins Activities List for Science Activities

Science Fun for Everyone

25 Easy Science Experiments to Do at Home

The Best Science Websites for Elementary Students

Kids Sites – Science Activities

Science News for Students – up-to-date science articles for upper elementary students

Exploratorium

Check out these resources for more information about space!

AMNH Astronomy for kids (Games and activities)          All about the Solar system (Video)  

Your weight on other planets (Interactive website)          NASA for Kids (Interactive website)   

Storybots solar system (Cartoon video but informative)  Planets for kids (Informative website)

 Khan Academy – Reason for the Seasons Video     PBS KIDS Science Trek – Gravity     

Crash Course

 

Leveled Reading List

The public library often prints a brochure of recommended books for the summer. The books are usually listed by reading levels. Your child should know his or her relative reading level. Usually, students leaving 5th heading into 6th grade read books from level T to level X.

Leveled Reading List B – Z Browse through lists of titles that are at your level. The grade levels are listed also. 

Refer to the suggestions on our class Summer Reading Recommendations Padlet. 

Students may also visit Mrs. Wagner’s website for links to nonfiction articles. 

 

What do you miss about being in school?

What child hasn’t at some point wished for days off from school? Well, now that we have quite a few ahead of us, I bet you have recognized things that you miss. Let’s keep a list of a few here. Please feel free to add. I ask that you follow two guidelines, however.

  1.  Stick to the topic of posting what you miss. 
  2. And, please try to be positive and not hurt anyone’s feelings (including your teacher’s feelings).
  3. Please try to write full sentences. (You want to continue to improve, don’t you?) Your comments will help me be a better teacher by learning what is important to you. And, we will stay in touch with each other. I will set up a new post sometime soon. If you have suggestions for topics, please feel free to make a list at home. I will make “possible topics” one of our new posts.

 

I’ll start. Besides the items I mentioned in the email I sent, I miss watching each of you as you grow. Being a kid is not easy. I can remember difficulties I faced. Each day, I am fascinated by how you go about solving problems in your own lives.