When we first went to Remote Learning and social distancing, an oft-repeated news item was about the creativity that “plagues” have afforded in the past. Apparently, Newton developed his theory of gravity and Shakespeare wrote prolifically when outbreaks of the Plague forced them to social distance. (As this blog in Scientific American points out, neither of them had children or Netflix to watch!)
We are a week into Remote Learning 2.0. The teachers continue to work to refine the lessons and structures we are using for Remote Learning. For some students, this new schedule is fantastic — a good balance of screen and off-screen time. Others continue to struggle with the schedule and organization. Still other students finish their work quickly and are ready for other activities.
Our specialist teachers — art, science, music, PE, library/FabLab, and Spanish — provide lots of options for students to pursue different interests. I follow Julie and Sam on Instagram and get frequent updates to the Padlets that Basia and Amanda use for sharing student work. One thing about learning from home that I really appreciate is that I get to see new aspects of student creativity. During school, I see student brilliance in the school setting, now I get to see their work in new ways.
There are also a number of interesting special projects available for students online through various arts and education organizations. For example:
The Rube Goldberg Foundation has a #boredombustingrubemachine contest that challenges family teams to create a contraption that drops a bar of soap into someone’s hand. The deadline for submission to the contest is May 31. Instructions for the contest and submitting entries is on their webpage.
The New Victory offers fun, free, programming each week. Past weeks have included clowning, songwriting, juggling, magic, and puppetry. These different programs are open-ended and challenge students to learn about how they learn, about their strengths and areas of interest, and storytelling.
EduHam at Home. Through EduHam, students study primary source documents from the Founding Era, learn how Lin-Manuel Miranda used such documents to create the musical Hamilton, and finally create their own original performance pieces based on the same material. It will continue to be available through August 2020.
The Moth Storytelling School. The educators at The Moth have developed a series of storytelling lessons to be used at home. Usually, a high school program, this series has been revised to be accessible to middle school students as well.
The Museum of Math has math classes for kids (for example, origami and the math behind origami, and Rubik’s cubes.) There is often a registration fee for these programs. If you scroll down on their page, upcoming events are listed.
What Now? is a science video series on youtube with Lynne Brunelle, writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Wonderopolis is a website dedicated to curiosity. I could absolutely go down a rabbit hole after the information on this website! Spend some time browsing, pick up some trivia, discover new information, think of some questions you hadn’t thought before.
Leading With Curiosity 