I Survived Virtual Teaching (and so did my kindergarteners)

February 16 2021 was a momentous day for teachers across Toronto and the GTA. It is the day that many of us returned to our in-person classrooms after almost two months of teaching online.  

This period of online learning did not take us by surprise, as it did back in March 2020 (calling that first pivot a “surprise” is putting it lightly).  Even before receiving instructions from our school board, we teachers had our Google classrooms set up and ready to go since September.  After the chaos that was last March, the last thing any teacher wanted was to be unprepared and locked out of our classrooms without notice. 

Although the “pivot” to virtual was expected, it was highly dreaded. Learning through a screen is NOT optimal for kids of any age, but especially for our littlest ones in primary grades, where most of their learning takes place away from a desk.

As a kindergarten teacher, with a class of students as young as three years old I was extremely anxious about how this Zoom teaching” was going to work out.

Typically, kindergarten is a play-based, exploratory program. 

In our classroom, we don’t have have individual desks desks. We have round tables that  are mostly used for snacks and activities.  We spend most of our day exploring outside, socializing with each other, singing songs and playing games, and using our imaginations. 

And yet it is NOT “just play,” but true, meaningful learning, through which over the year, develops the competence, confidence, and problem solving skills in our children to carry them forward into the rest of their academic journey. 

In kindergarten, we learn letters and numbers, but we learn so much more than that.  

In our outdoor classroom before going virtual

We learn how to share and to treat others how we want to be treated.  We learn everyone deserves our compassion and kindness-- our very best friends as well as those who are not our friends (yet.)

We learn how to advocate for ourselves, and how to feel and communicate feelings in a way that doesn’t encroach on anybody else’s feelings. 

We learn how to ask questions, how to seek out answers, how to solve problems, from flipping sleeves inside out to making up with a friend. 

We learn how to be okay with not knowing everything,  and how to ask for help when we cannot help ourselves.

We learn to celebrate the little things. 

We write cards for our friends who are sick or have birthdays or who need a smile.  We dance when we write a new word.  We cheer when one of our friends has something exciting to share.

We learn to speak kindly, and we learn to listen attentively. 

We learn to take turns, and be patient, and that even when we are desperately hopelessly and anxiously wanting to do something right in this very moment, we can take a deep breath and find a place of calmness to wait until the moment is right that we can.

We learn that everything runs better and smoother when we put others first.

We learn to clean up after ourselves, and even to clean up messes that are not ours because as a member of our classroom, we are all in this together. 

Prior to the Christmas break, when we were in school F2F, or “face-to-face,” everyday, our program looked like this:

• morning arrival and outdoor play

• morning circle time:, reading a story, playing a game, having a class discussion for no longer than twenty minutes.

• centres and open play at different stations, with the kids choosing where they wanted to go, and given the option move freely between centres

• recess and lunch time. 

• -Afternoon circle activity (again, no more than twenty minutes)-- then centre time and open play. 

• Closing circle, with each student reflecting and sharing their favourite actvivity from the day (10-15 minutes)

• Outdoor play and pick up.  

Making glitter pinecones before christmas and the virtual learning pivot

Our school board mandated a minimum of 180 minutes of “synchronous” learning every day for kindergarten classes.

In other words, three hours of being on Zoom with our kinders,  meaning having them listening and paying attention as a group for a full half a school day.

If you were to add up the amount of time we have kids doing that in a regular school day, essentially our circle times, it totals to under one hour a day.  And even then, there are MANY kids who have difficulty sitting and paying attention in those twenty minute spurts.  

And so I, as did many teachers, had a lot of anxiety making the transition to virtual school.  It felt innately wrong asking a child to stare into a computer screen for a day, and cruel to ask their parents to enforce it. 

And so we didn’t.  

Yes, we were synchronous, on Zoom for those mandated three hours.  However, we explicitly told our parents and families that we did NOT expect their kids to be on screen that whole time.  If their child wanted a break, by all means, take a break.

take a beak, maybe have a kitkat

We did our very best to keep kids engaged and enjoying their online time by getting them up and moving, and interacting with each other. 

With two educators in our class, we were able to use breakout rooms to run virtual open play sessions.  With a smaller group, it was possible for kids to be unmuted and talk and play with each other, and they loved it. 

We did lots of “show-and-shares,” showing off favourite toys, stuffed animals, pets, and little siblings.  We went on scavenger hunts around our house, searching for letters, words, numbers, shapes, and objects or items that matched a theme. 

We hosted science experiments and cooking demos for kids and their families to follow along, making exploding volcanoes, personal pizzas, and superhero smoothies.   We did yoga and meditation and had dance parties to co-created playlists (kidsbop shuffle and gummy bear being standing favourites). 

Even on zoom, we kept doing hands-on learning activities

On Fridays,  We played Bingo with hand-written bingo cards. We discovered new ways to play our favourite games like Hide-and-Go-Seek and “What Time is it Mr.Wolf?”

We had theme days for each day of the week: Mindful Mondays, Travel Tuesdays (and Thursdays), Wacky/Wonder Wednesdays, and Fun Fridays.

On “Travel”days, we came to our Zoom call  with our homemade passports in hand,  and dressed in the kind of wear for whatever virtual field trip we were going to be on:

We rode roller-coasters at Disney World, saw the Northern Lights in the Arctic, swam with sharks in the Great Barrier reef, saw how chocolate was made in a candy factory, and made ice sculptures at Winterlude in Ottawa.

One of our class favourites was outer space, where we made spaceships out of cardboard boxes or laundry baskets and tinfoil and whatever else we had on hand.   

One of the “out of this world” spaceships made by one of my students for a virtual field trip.

A strange thing happened.

We had been so worried about having so many hours in a day to fill on Zoom, but after a few weeks of being virtual, we found we were instead running OUT of time in a day to do all our planned activities. 

We even found it hard to get some of our kiddos off our Zoom meets, having to shut down the meeting during breaks and lunch time so kids didn’t stay on too long chatting with each other.

This just showed us how innately kids need to interact and play with each other. And during a lockdown, even Zoom is better than nothing.

Our kids surprised us with how resilient and adaptable they can be.  

This is not to say that we were sad to say goodbye to virtual learning when schools reopened.

While Zoom teaching went much better than expected, not every child adapted and thrived.  We had some children show up for the first few days, have meltdowns, and never login again.

We received several messages from parents telling us their children were struggling emotionally on Zoom, triggered by seeing their peers and teachers on a screen without being physically with them.  And even the kids that were chatting up a storm on our classroom Zoom were cheering at the announcement that they were heading back to “real” school. 

kids —and their parents— were cheering when schools reopened!

Together, as students and educators, and families, we did the best we could and as much as we could with a most unnatural situation.  

Sure, in a way it was nice being able to wake up later in the morning and teach in pajamas from the waist down.  And I don’t think I will ever forget the beautiful feeling that is having the power to mute a student with the click of a button.  

However, nothing compares to learning , playing, and growing together in person.  

I am back to waking up with sun, drinking cold coffee, and wearing paint stains on my clothes.  

Back with my little Kinders and loving it.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

—Jordan