Distance Learning

[186momx]

Can we talk about what all of our kids are doing for distance learning? How long they have been doing it?  What seems to be working well? How much time does it take? 

[186momx]

We just started this week. DD had her first 30 minute zoom meeting with her teachers and some of her classmates yesterday at 2. Everyone got to share what they have been up to which has been a whole lot of visiting and vacationing. I was so glad she was on mute as I shout WTF social distancing people. The homework they were given was to wash their hands and don't eat your buggers (3rd grade). Next Zoom date is Wednesday at 5:30pm and it is show and tell themed. From what we have been told this is what e-learning is going to be like for the rest of the school year. We may be able to pick up enrichment packets from the district.

[mae0111]

Oh boy...

So my kids have been distance learning since March 17th. Their last day at school was March 13th, so they had one day off.

I think that their school has handled things really well. Each day, we log on to the learning management system (LMS) to see what has been assigned. DD2's teacher (1st grade) sometimes assigns all the work for the week on Mondays, and sometimes adds throughout the week based on feedback, so we need to check every day. DD1's teachers ask them to log on each day to get daily assignments, and both have assigned longer term projects. DD1 has to comment on things throughout the week to ensure engagement. For both kids, all assignments are "due" on Friday, but that usually means that the quizzes associated with the assignments or any uploads. For paper, they've been asking the kids to hold on to it. DD2's teacher has asked us to bring everything she's done so far to school on Friday and leave it in a crate that she's leaving at the door. DD1's teachers haven't asked for anything yet.

ETA - I had to pick up very large packets of work on the morning of 3/17, and a second equally-large packet of work for DD2 a couple of weeks ago.  DD1 brought home every book and workbook she had on her last day of school in anticipation of a closure.

For face-to-face stuff, the kids have 1-2 zoom meetings per week with their main teachers. They also have a zoom art class, and zoom Spanish was supposed to start today but was canceled due to widespread power outages.

The challenges we've faced have more to do with DD1's ADHD and poor attitude. The work is appropriate. They're introducing new concepts through videos and during the zoom classes. I have to spend A TON of time with DD1 trying to get and keep her organized an on task, and DD2 is just too young to leave completely to her own devices. I can set her up with a chunk of work and get maybe 30-45mins of focus out of her, but that's it. All told, my kids probably work for 3-4 hours a day, including zooms.

If I was working full time, there is absolutely no way in hell that I could keep up with what's required. None. I don't know how some of the other parents are doing it. We are in week 5 of distance learning, and while we're supposed to go back May 4th, I don't see any way that could possibly happen.

[campermom]

We are on week 3 of google classrooms. My kids are in 3rd and 5th grades (and a 4 year old).

Tasks are posted weekly with no due dates, but basically it would boil down to one ELA/Math task per day. By task it’s like a 3-5 page packet for math-maybe videos embedded or a math game and math problems. I don’t even know what my 5th grader is doing-he is self sufficient. 3rd graders ELA is a couple of activities per day. There’s also usually some questions of the day to post on the stream.

Social studies and science are optional. This is the first week we will attempt them.

One task per special (PE/Media/Art/Music/Health), per week.
One band video to upload per week.

Then my daughter needs extra practice w math facts so we have access to Dreambox and some other math apps. We also have access to Lexia for extra ELA intervention which are both nice bc they are very self directed.

We have access to a typing app and I’m having the kids do this in the afternoon bc WOW typing takes them forever!

Hard parts: This is the first week I feel like I know what I’m doing. The kids never even knew they had emails much less how to access and check them. Setting up all the tech was rough. We bought a chromebook and a printer. Learning how to scan and upload documents and open them back up to read teacher comments. Still need to use my work laptop for some assignments. We have to use extension apps to write on things, we have 9,754 different usernames and passwords for everything we need to navigate.

What’s been working: it’s just going smoother now that we are learning how to use it all.
Out schedule: the kids really do better when they get up at like 7:45 (the little ones are up at 6) and ease into the day. They know 9:00 is business. My 4 year old is getting more used to “learning time”. He has headphones and can remain busy on learning apps or DVDs or play with puzzles or Hot dots.

We work for anywhere from 1-2 hours in the morning. Usually another hour or so in the afternoon.

Our county also sent home a big workbook. My oldest is worried about not knowing enough in middle school so he does a little here and there.

[traveltheworld]

We are in week 3 of distance learning and it's annoying me to no end. DS (Grade 2)'s teachers throw some assignments on-line every day. There have been no Zoom classes, just hang-outs where the kids all try to talk over each other.

Things that are assigned from school that we do: writing assignments, art projects (Youtube tutorials), and listen to his teacher reads a chapter book (about 20 minutes per day). Despite multiple attempts to get DS to do the assignments himself, he still needs help navigating all of the assignments.

Things that are assigned from school that we don't do: any type of social studies project - the last 2 require multiple additional supplies, which I just don't have the time to go buy (nor want to).  We don't do the Math as typically they are math games that DS would need someone to play with him.

DS also does his own on-line math program and math workbook, chess, typing game, piano practice and on-line language class. So he's sufficiently occupied.

DD (pre-school) has Zoom classes twice a week. She does the art projects and listens to the chapter book reading with DS.

[twinmomma]

We've been going strong with distance learning for a long time. The kids went home on Friday March 13th, we picked up supplies on Wednesday the 18th, and classes started on Thursday the 19th.

We get about 4 - 4.5 hours of work a day to do for second grade. They log on in the morning to see what's been assigned for the day. The schedule includes reading, math, writing, and specials (PE/Art/Music/Guidance). They each have 1-2 full class zoom meetings per week, plus 2 small group lesson zoom meetings per week. They also have daily announcements via video from the principal every day to watch, just like if they were in school listening on the intercom.

The type of work varies. They have a couple of math websites to use, a couple reading websites, Google classroom assignments, math workbooks, writing journals, etc. The teachers record video lessons too for "word study" which is like phonics/grammar I guess? When we picked up our supplies, the school sent home each kid's Chromebook plus every single item from their desks and then some. It's a ton of supplies.

We're struggling a lot with staying on task for DD2. She is more than capable of doing the work, but it's really hard for her to be self-sufficient and transition from task to task every half hour or so. DD1 is better at being able to just go through her daily check list, but still needs prompting and reminding. We are not at "maintain" level at all though - they're moving forward with new lessons and concepts.

[mustardseed2007]

It's evolving as the school figures stuff out.

Currently there is a portal where each teacher posts a suggested schedule. it doesn't have times on it but sort of an order of activities for the kids to do.

DS has zoom sessions several days per week. Normally they chat, do a math lesson and then sometimes shes closes out by reading to them from a harry potter book they had started before all this happened.
As far as daily assignments, he's supposed to work in his math book, then read and answer questions on passages. He also practices spelling words (new words each week). Plus a handwriting journal.
Then he has some projects he was working on. He's done with the science project and pretty much ready to finish the social studies one. He keeps doing rough drafts with his dad, which boggles my mind but I've been so tied up I haven't intervened.
The new project is a poetry one. He's supposed to read and record himself presenting a poem.


DD in pre K has daily zoom meetings. She also has worksheets she does and then there are videos and some math and reading work on apps she's supposed to do.

Honestly I can't figure out if the kids are getting less work done than the normal school day or not. I think H and I both feel like it's a lot of work to make sure we stay on top of the proposed schedule.

[Deleted]

This is week 3 for us. Thankfully our school is only doing Monday-Thursday which means I can easily go to my lab on fridays and do all my lab work for the week.

My 5th grader is doing great at it. She won’t attend google meets that are optional because they are too loud, but she is really good at making sure all her work is done and turned in. She’s a bit of a perfectionist. It takes her about 2 hours a day.

My 2nd grader is doing pretty well. He ironically started ADHD meds the day before distance learning started, which is probably why it’s going well. Haha. His teachers post things in a grid for the week with 3 assignments each day for each subject. It’s very easy to follow and takes him about 2 hours per day.

It’s not going super great for the 8th grader. She’s struggling with turning stuff in (not a new issue though). To be fair to her all the teachers are posting things differently and it is even confusing to me to actually wade through everything and figure out what is due when and to get all the pieces to everything. So I’m now sitting down with her and helping her to list every piece out separately so she can check them off as she goes. Google classroom’s to do list is what she relies on, but not all assignments are there always. It’s very confusing. Yesterday she worked from 8:30-3:30 with only a couple breaks. That was getting her set up with lists and such though. She’s really struggling to keep it all sorted and struggling with motivation on the stuff she doesn’t like to do...

[mommyatty]

We are on Week 4, I think. I’ve lost track. Both kids have a morning Zoom meeting. DD’s (2nd) is at 9. DS’s (K) is at 9:10. Both last 30-45 minutes. For both kids, assignments are posted daily.

DD has her normal class ones plus her Specials (Idea Lab, Spanish, PE, Art, and Music). She’s supposed to do one Special per day, and some more often. Like she’s supposed to do a PE every day and Spanish twice a week. Many of her lessons are videos of her teachers teaching. She has timed reading for 20 minutes plus a math app until she finishes a unit. She is utterly and completely self-sufficient. I see her work because everything she uploads, I get in email. I also see her teacher’s comments, which will tell her what to fix and re-submit. She also has an afternoon Zoom meeting where her teacher goes over things a lot of kids seemed to miss and talk about how their days went.

DS has 5-8 things to do each day. His morning meeting is what they do every day they are at school (say the months of the year, days of the week, count to 100 by ones, fives, and tens, etc). Then his teacher goes over the assignments for the day, which are also posted in his Google folder. Every day, they read a book, have a math lesson, do a phonics exercise, and then have a couple of other assignments. This week, each kid was assigned an animal to learn about. DS is learning about hippos. Today he is to learn about their habitats. Then later this week they will do an animal report on their Zoom meeting. They’ve also done Show and Tell by Zoom. DH has to help DS a ton. I don’t think I could do it all if DH wasn’t a SAHD.

[rere]

We've been going since mid March with a week off for Spring break. Dd had a major meltdown over the amount of work and she confused some due dates. So I wrote a 1 page paper on the health benefits of exercise. I got 100%. Which is good since I am a health educator...

[sdlaura]

Ours only officially started yesterday, and it was pretty terrible. This is our fifth week of schools closed, but the first two weeks there was only optional work, and then we had a two-week spring break. I have a 2nd-grader and a kindergartner. My 2nd-grader is very driven and loves school work and so I figured she would be fine doing most of her work on her own. My kindergartner hates homework and is pretty immature, so I worried about him. But luckily the kindergarten teachers are only assigning a small amount of required work.

DD's 2nd grade teacher sent out 6 pages of directions for assignments (directing the kids where to do them on various apps) that needed to be done on the first day alone. She needs a lot of help figuring out where to go and we had tech issues. As we were having problems with the zoom password, the toddler is screaming because it was time for his nap (and I needed to get him down because I had a work meeting in 15 minutes), and DS1 got his hand stuck in a piece of patio furniture and was screaming from the backyard. All while DH was on a call and couldn't help. It was a mess.

And there were tears that she's going to go from being a good student to a bad one. I think part of our issue was that we've now spent a month doing next to nothing academic (just doing lots of reading both independently and by DH and me, and math apps), so this was a major shock. But it also meant I couldn't get in more than 5 minutes of work at a time in the afternoon without having to stop to help her, and she got tired of it pretty quick and wanted to go out to play. I just don't have it in me right now to fight over her doing schoolwork. DH said he'd help more today (yesterday he barely came out of his office). I'm not ready to admit defeat yet, but I might just say forget it and not get involved it all in checking what she's done unless she asks me.

[mommyatty]

sdlaura- our first week was really hard. Second week was a bit better, but still tough. After that, it’s been much easier. So don’t get discouraged. It does get a lot easier.

[waverly]

This is our 4th week of official elearning. Our district must be prescient because we moved to be a 1:1 technology district mostly chrome books and moved to elearning for snow days this year, so we started day 1 right away. We also had 1 week of spring break.

We did mostly online computer game type stuff, Zearn. ABC mouse, Kahn academy review. This week we have moved onto learning new materials and a different format. They originally had plans including specials and most IEP programs. Then they moved to specials being optional and direct contact with the IEP provider. They nixed science and social studies and we are only doing language arts and math now.

Kids meet for math and language arts once per day (3rd grade), 1st grade is way more relaxed. We now have a Wednesday’s off for teacher planning but teachers are hosting a class meeting on Wednesday’s for socializing.



My 1st grader is done in less than an hour. We basically work from 9-12, and it takes longer because of the class meetings for my 3rd grader.

[madringal]

We started March 16th (and had one week off for spring break), and our district does elearning every MWF. New assignements are uploaded on those mornings and we just get to work. We have been using elearning systems for a few years now in our district and are 1:1 for devices K-12, so it has been pretty seamless. It is basically business as usual. For my 6th grader, it takes her about 5 hours a day to get all her work done. They are not just in maintenance mode, they are still starting new lessons and learning new things. She works just fine independently, and thankfully DH is WFH too so he can help with her math work bc God knows I cannot!

For my 2nd grader, it is the same, just on a smaller scale. She has ADD so she works best with me right next to her the whole time. Reading all the instructions together, checking her work before she submits it, etc. It takes us about 3 hours to get through all her work (this includes on of her specials each day - gym, music, or art) and then Library on Wednesdays.

My kids do well on elearning. It hasn't been difficult to get them to do it at all, and their teachers are sending them enough work to make it meaningful. So I consider us very lucky. We are done with the school year May 22nd and I will miss it. It keeps them busy, 3 days a week!

[k3am]

We wrapped up one week on Friday. This week is spring break.

The district has put together math and ELA videos for the kids too watch. They're too long - anywhere from 20-45 minutes, very dry, and ask the kids to pause and do work, which ends up being 1+ hours, and far longer than a 1st grade attention span.

DD's teacher and one of the other first grade teachers have been sending a couple videos a week on different topics - they are 8-10 minutes, MUCH more kid friendly, and usually have a follow up assignment. They are PERFECT.

We've had one zoom meeting - it was not educational focused at all, just rewarding kids who leveled up on Lexia or Dreambox, and each kid giving a "rose" and a "thorn" about not being at school. It was exactly what the kids needed.

We've been keeping up on the math work they sent at the beginning of the break, and DD is doing well with those.

I've signed up for a mobymax.com trial as a "homeschool teacher." It isn't perfect, but I like it so far. We've been working in it for about a week for 30-60 minutes a day, and DD doesn't hate it. I will probably end up buying a year long license for it.. I think it's like $99 (at worst, like $600), but we're not paying for daycare or before/aftercare, so even on the higher end, I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

At the end of the day.. school isn't going to grade anything. We are taking the opportunity to teach however I feel like it and what works for us, focus on things she wants to learn, and trying to keep pace on where she's supposed to be for math and ELA.

[librarychica]

We are on week 5 of closures and week 3 of distance learning.

My second grader had mandatory work. 30-45 minutes of math, english, science and social studies each day. It’s a combo of workbook pages from the math and social studies work book she’s done all year, ebooks and apps. Our state is fortunate as it had a long established and respected virtual school program to fall back on. It’s not really a challenge for her but honestly neither was what she was doing in class. I’d say they got a slow start but are moving along steadily in giving the kids more of a challenge. She has two meetings a week. They’ve mostly been social so far but the teacher told them that this next one they will start having class discussions on the reading. She also has 3 optional PE units a week (she’s doing yoga now), one art and one media center activity. It all takes about 3 hours a day, 4 on meeting days.

The school has an alternative curriculum for those without the ability to do the online instruction.

My youngest is in voluntary preK which is government-sponsored but not mandatory. A voucher system essentially. So she doesn’t have any mandatory work but her teacher sends them story time videos, science experiments (which we try to do on the weekends) work sheet packets and had a subscription to Epic, which is a picture ebook service for them to work with. We use that to help occupy DD2 when her sister is doing her work.

It’s going fine. My kids have been mostly cooperative, especially the oldest, and H and I are taking turns being available to redirect and answer questions.

[twinmomma]

Apr 14, 2020 12:46:25 GMT -5 k3am said:

The district has put together math and ELA videos for the kids too watch. They're too long - anywhere from 20-45 minutes, very dry, and ask the kids to pause and do work, which ends up being 1+ hours, and far longer than a 1st grade attention span.

This is something we're struggling with too. The "30 minutes" of a subject ends up dragging on forever as they pause to execute tasks during the lesson. It's brutal and there's not really a good way to break it up into smaller, more manageable chunks because it's a long, continuous lesson. 

[sdlaura]

I think if DH and I didn't both have crazy busy jobs, we might be more into it. It's just so difficult to balance our work with helping them at all.

[k3am]

Apr 14, 2020 12:59:55 GMT -5 twinmomma said:

Apr 14, 2020 12:46:25 GMT -5 k3am said:

The district has put together math and ELA videos for the kids too watch. They're too long - anywhere from 20-45 minutes, very dry, and ask the kids to pause and do work, which ends up being 1+ hours, and far longer than a 1st grade attention span.

This is something we're struggling with too. The "30 minutes" of a subject ends up dragging on forever as they pause to execute tasks during the lesson. It's brutal and there's not really a good way to break it up into smaller, more manageable chunks because it's a long, continuous lesson. 

My other struggle with the longer videos is that we break up learning between us. Neither of us can devote more than 30 mins at a time.

[mustardseed2007]

No matter how on top of it we try to be, it feels like we turn around and realize we haven't done x y or z basically every week.

[twinmomma]

mustardseed2007, Same. I've essentially given up on the specials altogether. I don't have time to round up art supplies or PE stuff just for them to do a 20 minute activity. Music class is usually something silly like "sing along to this video" so they can do that on their own. The guidance teacher sent a video on how to make those calm down jars with glitter and water. WTF lady? No one has time to deal with that and round up all those art supplies in the middle of a quarantine!

[k3am]

You'll all be amused to know that my soon to be 4 year old's daycare is sending out lesson plans. Full on lesson plans. Multiple projects a day. I basically laugh and delete.

[phdmomma]

Not coping well.....on the plus side, the school district has done a really nice job with the videos and tasks in that they are short (2nd grade). My 2nd grader can do it on his own with minimal help from me. The PE ones are particularly funny to watch, here do jumping jacks to this video. The 4k teachers at DD's school are nuts, like here are 3 videos and 10 things you should do. Umm....we can watch 1-2 videos and maybe do 1 thing. I feel like I would have a much better handle on all of this if I wasn't trying to work 40+ hours a week as DH is too right now. I just don't have time to sort all of this out or round up stuff.

[mustardseed2007]

I will say on the upside, 2nd grade has one social zoom each week. The teacher is on there and the counselor. She doesn't have any activities for us to do, she just talks with them during the group session. It's actually really lovely.

[erinshelley21]

DS is in K and this is our 3rd week. We did a week before spring break, off for 2 weeks for break and then started eLearning last Tuesday. Week 1 was all worksheets. Starting last week it's been all virtual. I wish there were worksheets.

The amount of work only amounts to about 2 hours: 30 minutes of reading, a recorded video for language arts that he has to produce work for, 20 minutes of math and then 15-20 for phonics. Music once a week adds 30 minutes, PE twice a week for 15ish minutes, and 20 minutes for technology. We only do school Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. IN was granted a certain number of waiver days so those are used on Monday and Friday. The amount of work K is getting isn't enough, but the younger grades have more students that dont have a lot of access to technology.

I'm trying to add to what his teacher is assigning, but its challenging.

[vasc]

I know I don’t post often, but I lurk regularly and am just going to dive in.

DD is in 1st grade and has also been out of school since March 13. On Monday, 3/16, we got to go to the school to pick up her Chromebook and a packet of worksheets, workbooks, etc. I’ve been very impressed with the organization of the eLearning so far. We have to login to her Google Classroom each day and there’s a slideshow of the day’s activities sorted by one subject per slide. Much of it is a combination of “visit this website (with link) and view lesson/video, then complete page X of matching workbook,” etc. The handouts in the paper packet were labeled Day 1, Day 2, etc.

DD is very self-sufficient and an early riser, so I started setting out the 2-3 daily worksheets at her desk to complete before coming down in the morning (no earlier than 7:00). She’s been very cooperative about that.

The slides also include activities for related arts and enrichment (Bingo card style). I’ve emphasized those less, preferring to pick our own fun family activities with our open afternoons. I’m not going to insist DD choose a silly PE Bingo activity when we also go on a four mile bike ride.

That being said, the Related Arts teachers have been very creative in keeping kids engaged. They are still filming the daily news show to watch on YouTube, complete with pledge and moment of silence. The RA teachers also have active InstaGram accounts and encourage students (and parents) to post images and videos of their activities, tag the teachers, etc. DD’s images have been featured on the school website and morning announcements.

None of the work has been turned in yet. The teacher says we will start new content the week after spring break and I suspect we will have more instruction-focused Google Meet sessions (so far the three the teacher has hosted have been social). What I think DD would benefit more from is just a brief 5-10 minute individual check-in with her teacher so her teacher can motivate her when she gets bent out of shape over something. That happened once last week...she was digging her heels over a writing prompt so I texted the teacher on Seesaw and asked if she’d “meet” with DD. She did and DD responded positively but I think she’d appreciate it more if she had a regularly scheduled “meet” on the calendar each week.

[erinshelley21]

Apr 14, 2020 15:35:08 GMT -5 mustardseed2007 said:

I will say on the upside, 2nd grade has one social zoom each week. The teacher is on there and the counselor. She doesn't have any activities for us to do, she just talks with them during the group session. It's actually really lovely.

DS does a social zoom on Thursdays. I missed watching the first one because DD pooped right as it started. I missed what DS shared with his entire class and teacher, but my bff sent me a text that he was cracking her up. So, I am really curious about what he shared. He couldnt remember so it's hard telling what they all know about our family lol

[sandandsea]

I just posted this on another board so I’ll copy it here.
We get 1 video a day (20-30 minutes total) alternating between math and language that is put out by the district for all of the second graders. Also we have access to online apps that they use at school like Lexia, Dreambox, edutype, pebble go, scholastic and others. We’ve been out 4 weeks and had 1 zoom meeting with his teacher and 10 students that lasted 15 mins. (His teacher has 29 students so she broke it into three groups.) They’re supposed to start having a weekly zoom meetings but it hasn’t happened yet. Grades are frozen and your second trimester grade is where you end for the year. Everything is voluntary and non-graded for the rest of the year. Our district has been sooo slow to move to online learning and I’m honestly assuming third grade in the fall will just start a couple of months behind where it normally starts curriculum-wise.

There is about 10% (I haven’t verified this) of the student body that hasn’t been reached at all by the district since the shutdown a month ago.

ETA. I’m doing the minimum and bribing ds to do his work. Also I’m saying the teacher requires everything, not me, which helps and is only a teeny tiny fib. Ds generally has 5 things to do each day (Lexia, Dreambox, math or language, reading, and some worksheets) and I’ve agreed to help him with 1 each day so he does the rest on his own. We also give him a sticker that translates to $1 for each item he does alone and well. We bought DS2 (3yo) school’s curriculum dvd and workbook and have him work on it while ds1 does his real work. It’s mostly phonics and pre-reading stuff but he does it and likes it and ds1 is amazing at helping him with it. Other than that Netflix and iPads and the fenced in small backyard are occupying them and they are overseeing each other.

[sdlaura]

erinshelley21 I’m surprised that you want more work! My DD has 2-3 hours and I want less/all of it to be optional. We can’t keep up.

[mommyatty]

It seems like half the working parents at our kids’ school want more work to keep their kids busy longer and half want less so they don’t feel as pressured. So our school has a core of “must do” stuff (which still isn’t super must do since we are also told as parents to do what we can and let the rest go) and a lot of “fun extras”. And people are still unhappy.