Category Archives: Online Learning

After writing last week’s post, I realized that I haven’t actually explained my Flat Mrs. Cora experiment. It did not go how I expected, but I want to share what I expected and what actually happened so that you can go into a similar experiment with more realistic expectations! I can’t take credit for theContinue reading “Flat Mrs. Cora”

Last summer, I decided it was time to update my wardrobe. Most of my teaching clothes are ones I bought secondhand before moving to Thailand three years ago, so I decided it was time to put some new shirts into the mix. After searching several stores over several days, I ended up finding only oneContinue reading “My First-Day Shirt”

Here’s my promised long form post about students having the option to come back to school. Last week was the first time this school year that students had the option to come to in-person school. Different grade levels had different turnouts, but in Grade 2 we had about 75% turnout for onsite learning. Those studentsContinue reading “The Switch to Hybrid”

Yesterday was the first day my school offered in-person learning for students. Out of the 15 students in my class, 11 of them came to school (they were split between the two onsite Grade 2 teachers) and 4 of them stayed online. My online class also has a handful of students from the other twoContinue reading “A Couple Sweet Moments”

One of my favorite units in Grade 2 science is our unit on plant needs. After a series of explorations to discover that plants need water, sunlight, and dirt, we take a step back to ask this question: do all plants need the same amount of these things? Anyone who has ever owned an orchidContinue reading “I am a Fern”

I spend a lot of time pointing out the deficiencies of online education, but this week I noticed a unique benefit of the online school experience. Online school isn’t truly online; my students are learning from home. Students’ homes are the places where they spend most of their time and learn life lessons, and forContinue reading “In Their Element”

When online school was announced for the start of this year, the principals began to panic about “screen time.” In my elementary school, students spend 4-5 hours of their school day live on Zoom, not including time allotted for working on online assignments. To be honest, I did not understand the screen time hype atContinue reading “Screen Time”

A couple weeks ago, I posted about my “Dailies” that I do every day with my second grade class. This week, I want to share about a variation on Number Talks called Dot Talks. When adults count objects, they rarely count each individual thing. Instead, they subitize, or mentally put objects into groups of aContinue reading “Dot Talks”

Sometimes online school seems painfully distant and impersonal. Other times, like this week, little bright spots of personality shine through. Online school greatly reduces the number of discipline issues in class. No one can hit each other, and a quiet room is just a mute button away. This is good, because it can be nearlyContinue reading “A Bright Moment”