Applying Distance Lessons to Holidays
The pandemic is still upon us. Although schools are open for in-person learning, more than half of my students are still Zooming in for distance lessons. Families are discouraged from gathering as well. So I decided to apply some of the things I’ve learned teaching virtually, and host some family get-togethers on Zoom.
Thanksgiving
For Thanksgiving, we had a video call with my siblings, mom, nieces, and nephews. I ran the Zoom like my classroom, and it was slightly awkward, but fun. The big hit was the Kahoot about family trivia on the last slide. All together, over two dozen people across four generations in multiple locations (and time zones) participated. Because it’s 2020, my teacher Bitmoji made several appearances.
Christmas
For Christmas, we will continue being apart, but we still want to spend time together, so I proposed a digital Escape Room that I discovered in an online teacher group. At a predetermined time tomorrow, I will send out the link and we will all start trying to solve it with our households. An hour later, we will get together and compare notes.
There are so many online resources for family holiday games! Kahoot has a selection of trivia quizzes. YouTube has many Name That Tune videos. I picked my favorites to create a virtual party for my family. I’m even going to try sending them to breakout rooms to create a virtual animated Christmas Card.
Happy Holidays to each and everyone who reads this! Here’s hoping for a better 2021.