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Materials To Send Home With Your Virtual Students

As we prepared to begin our school year virtually, we were very thoughtful about the material we wanted students to have at home. In the spring, we weren’t able to get much home to the families, and it was hard to send printable versions of all the activities we had planned.

Goals of At-Home Materials

The materials we chose seemed to fall into three categories. These categories helped us select materials and identify the purpose of what we were sending home:

  1. Scaffolds For Independence: Some of the materials are anchor charts, reminders, or cheat sheets to help students do their work without the assistance of a teacher on hand.
  2. Learning Manipulatives: We tried to send home as many hands-on materials as was practical to aid in lessons. Manipulatives are so crucial for younger students–not just for learning, but also for engagement.
  3. Project Materials: There are so many wonderful activities and projects we start the year with–art projects, science experiments, class projects–and we wanted to be able to include as many of these as possible in our virtual plans. This meant thinking ahead about what materials student would need at home to be able to complete this work.

Breakdown of Materials

I’m excited to share with you everything they got for at-home learning! We are planning to do additional pick-ups every two weeks, so that we can continue to hand out materials that are needed for upcoming lessons.

Math Toolkit

Out math toolkit is chalk-full of manipulatives and game materials. We included these in pencil box for easy storage:

  • 2 sets of dice – dots and numbered
  • 10 linking cubes
  • 10 double-sided counters
  • Whiteboard marker and eraser

These tools are so helpful for our live Zoom math lessons. They provide so many opportunities for me to work in student participation and engagement. The double-sided counters are great for games and for looking at combinations that make certain totals.

Dry-Erase Pocket Sleeve

These have been so helpful to use during lessons! I included 3 different templates that we use during math that have number bonds, ten frames, and addition sentence prompts. I numbered them all so that I can just tell students which number we need that day. In the back is a piece of white cardstock, so that the back is always our blank side. While we are mostly using these in math lesson right now, I am going to start using them for dictation words soon as well.

Writing Folder

This is something we use every year in class, so it was simple to send these home as they were already prepared. Students use their folder to store the stories they are working on and the stories they finished. Inside the folder is a sheet protector with a page the pictures and the spellings for our alphabet sound cards and also a page of sight words. These are for reference while they write. We also gave them some story packets to get them started on their writing!

Reading Folder

The reading folder is a new addition, but it seemed like a convenient way to store all of their reading supplies in one place. Their reading folder has sheet protectors to put anchor charts (we started with out first anchor chart of the year – reading superpowers). In the pocket of the folder, we put their letter tiles, which we use for word building and phonics actitivies.

Science Materials

We selected the materials they need for the first few weeks of science – some planting materials, a few project materials, and the science reader. We use FOSS, which is a very hands-on science program. So we’ll definitely have to send home more materials as we go. We also sent home our Science Journals, where students keep a record of the experiments and concepts gone over during science lessons.

Ongoing Projects

We decided to send home their whole alphabet book, which is the first ongoing project we have. It seemed simpler to send the whole book ahead of time rather than send page by page for parents to print and cut out each day. This strategy will be useful for future projects that have a similar, on-going pattern.

Art Materials

Our school is all about arts-integration, so we include an art project every single day as part of their classwork. Some of these are optional, but many of the families love to do them as a break from worksheets and academics. We sent out a questionnaire at the beginning of the year to see if families needed us to provide any basic art materials (colored pencils, construction paper, glue, paints). Then as part of our pick-up, I put together any additional materials that were required for the next two weeks of projects. This week, we sent home sequins, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and beads!

So far these pick-ups have really helped us stick to a lot of our normal lesson plans. Transforming lesson plans has been a big job this year, so anything that can help have students get a similar experience to what they would have in the classroom is hugely helpful!

What materials are you sending home with your virtual students?
xoxo
Laura

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