We are actually face-to-face! It is really exciting that, after a year and a half, we can welcome students back in the classroom! That being said, we have parents who have chosen to remain virtual and some students who have to quarantine from time to time. Since these students will not get a WHOLE DAY virtual teacher, just a class or two, so the rest of the day needs to be filled asynchronous activities. To help teachers with this, I created a bank of free sites!
How to use the sites –
Regardless of what site you use, I must be clear, I am no fan of “busy work.” It’s so easy for online assignments to become just something to keep students busy. However, there are plenty of free sites that can help energize the kids and promote active learning. It might take a little creative thinking, but you can create asynchronous activities that will still engage students and create meaningful learning opportunities outside the classroom.
For example, you can assign a story for kids to read or listen to and then complete a traditional response where they write a connection they had, or discuss what they would do in the characters position, etc. You can, of course, have them do an interactive tech response too! If you want quick ideas of what to do with some of the stories, check out Literary Fusions.
If you choose to assign a math manipulative, like the marble jar that is linked below, ask students to fill the jar and guess how many marbles there are. Next they should add up the red marbles, the green marbles, etc. Then add the numbers together. Then it’s time to analyze – How close was their guess? Which color had the most and least marbles? What is the difference in the two?
The bottom line, and what I’m begging for, is for asynchronous work to be more than busy work! Don’t take this list of sites as something you can just assign and be done with! Instead, see how these technology tools can breathe new life into online assignments.
Click on the picture before to get all the links! What would you add?
