Top Tips to help you and your Little Learners with Distance Learning
Tip 1: Setting up a dedicated work area for your child
- Designating a personal working area, where possible, will help your child separate their school life from their home-life.
- Have an organised space to work, with a suitable work surface, writing materials and required books ready.
- Ideally, it should be a place that is quiet and free from distractions, and has a strong WiFi signal.
- Where possible, it should be a space where a responsible adult is present or can easily pop in to monitor the children's learning.
Tip 2: Planning your day
- Plan to do two or three challanges a day.
- Work through the activities in the order they are uploaded to Seesaw, as they often build on work from a previous session.
- Break up the teaching videos and follow up activities with regular breaks.
- Do not spend more than 40-50 minutes (Year 1), or 20-30 minutes (Transition) on any one activity.
- If your child does not finish a challenge, don't worry, please still upload their work for us to mark.
- Praise your child using our Rainbow Champions for their work, the children really relate to this language and find this very motivating.
Rainbow Champions
Sample Timetables
Delving deeper: Differentiation
Children will naturally work at different paces and be at slightly different points in their development, tackle the challenges that are appropriate for your child.
Each task is differentiated into one of three areas:
Rippling Rivers, Twinkling Tree-Tops and Misty Mountains.
- Rippling Rivers challenges are the most independently accessible.
- Twinkling Treetops activities create more of a challenge, some support maybe needed.
- Misty Mountains tasks are the greater depth challenges that should be used for children who need extending.
Children do not need to work through each task systematically, please select the one you feel is most appropriate for your child. Look at each of the core learning areas separately, as it may be that in Maths, for example, your child can access the Twinkling Tree-Top challenge with some independence, whilst in Phonics, the may be better suited to working at the Rippling River level.
Pitching the task at the appropriate level will aid their confidence and ensure they feel they have successfully achieved the challenge. Children will also make much more progress if they do not feel too overwhelmed, having the confidence to be a ‘Daring Dolphin’ in later challenges.
Tip 3: Supporting children during Zoom sessions
- Ensure your child is set up in a quiet space.
- Ensure background noise is kept to a minimum, the microphone clearly picks up conversation and noise.
- If possible, ensure siblings are set up in a different area for the duration of the session - older siblings may sit and listen, but younger siblings should be supervised.
- Please ensure your child is visible on the screen.
- We understand that at such a young age, the children want to tell their friends and teacher exciting developments in their world, to ensure this is kept as part of a focused session, and not as interruptions during the class zoom, the teachers have introduced 'Chattering Cheetahs' at the end of every afternoon session, this will give children an opportunity to chatter and share with their teacher and friends.
Delving deeper: Phonics & Writing
When applying their knowledge of phonics to their writing, the children should be making phonetically plausible attempts at complex words, for example, writing the word ‘elephant’, phonetically plausibly would be – ‘elefnt’. Or, if your child is at the early stages of writing in Transition, they may just hear and write the initial and end sounds 'et'.
Refer back to the phonic challenges your child has completed, if the ‘ph’ digraph is one that has not yet been covered, do not expect your child to use this in the writing of the word ‘elephant’. Equally, if you know that the phonic sessions have covered this, encourage its use ‘next time’ by having a discussion... sometimes the ‘f’ sound is actually the ‘ph’ digraph.
Let the children maintain the flow of their writing, supporting using sound buttons (holding up one finger for each sound as they write), encouraging them to write down the sounds they hear. It is tempting to interrupt and guide, but we are aiming for independent writing as much as possible. This doesn’t mean that 'scaffolding' the writing process is not helpful, quietly prompting and reminding them of strategies such as sound mats, sound buttons etc. will support.
Encourage re-reading of work, at this point you could identify 1 or 2 key points as next steps, for example, let's practise the letter ‘s’, or remember to use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, or if your child can manage it, remember to use commas in a list. Teachers will of course be marking and setting next steps also, but sharing this process with them in the moment, is valuable.
Tip 4: Monitor communication from your child's teacher
- Feedback will be given on Seesaw and this will be used as a platform to communicate.
- Read the feedback with your child each day, this can be the following morning before they start their next set of challenges, teachers’ comments mean a great deal to the children and are a good way of motivating them before the next challenge begins
- Processing feedback on work submitted is also a great way of understanding what your child is working on and help them think about the next steps in their learning.
Delving deeper: Maths
The children have a thorough understanding of our Maths Mastery approach, where mathematical language such as ‘part whole’, ‘systematic’ and ‘prove it’ are all part of their everyday learning.
When learning each mathematical concept, the children are initially taught using practical, concrete apparatus. They physically experience partitioning into tens and ones, counting on and halving. This forms the basis of their understanding and is an essential part of deepening their knowledge. From there, we move on to experiencing each concept in the pictorial sense. Here the children are encouraged to draw counters or dienes to show that they have a secure picture of the concept. As the children’s understanding becomes embedded, we move onto more abstract learning, where the children then evidence all their previous understanding using number sentences, bar models and part wholes. Throughout the process we continue to ask the children to explain ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ they know something, and to explain their thinking. We discourage answers like ‘I just know’ as this indicates that the children have a rote knowledge of a concept, rather than a true understanding.
As an example, in Transition the children learn each number in a thorough and detailed way. This may start with them counting out 5 toys or objects from their environment, or noticing five items that are similar. As counting becomes secure the children will then draw their own five objects or counters, for example, 5 buttons on a gingerbread man or 5 eggs in a nest. Through this process the children will learn the quantitative nature of the number '5' and so have a good understanding of what this is. As we label that quantity ‘5’ and teach the children this symbol, they also begin learning that ‘5’ has a value in parts, as in 4 and 1, 2 and 3 etc. and that we know this value because we have sorted and grouped this number ‘5’ practically, pictorially and finally, abstractly.
As an example, in Year 1, the children learn to count on from a number as an addition strategy. As we begin learning this strategy, they are taught using counters or their fingers to hold that first number in their head, and then count on the next smaller number. They will get many opportunities to do this to ensure that they are secure in the process. As their fluency in this becomes more secure, we then use pictures and a variety of context to embed their knowledge. This may be that they complete ‘part wholes’ or ‘tens frames’, drawing in their counters or numbers into these models. As they do this, they begin to notice the patterns that can be seen in using their bonds to add, providing the link to previously learnt concepts, and so deepening their understanding. As a final development of their understanding the children will be given problem solving opportunities, using their understanding to explain or prove or find mistakes. In this way, their own misconceptions can be dealt with and the children’s understanding can be consolidated.
Tip 5: Regular breaks and mindfulness exercises
- It is important to have regular breaks and not to work on any challenges for more than 30 (Transition) or 50 (Year 1) minutes.
- Remember to keep a filled water bottle next to your child to keep them hydrated.
- Below are some websites we recommend for mindfulness exercies:
Tip 6: Physical activity and exercise
- At Aberdour our pupils enjoy incredible facilities and a very active programme of Sports. It is essential for their health, well-being and to their learning. Children need to find time in their day to burn off excess energy at home.
- With current Lockdown restrictions, it is important to think of ways they can exercise safely without coming into contact with others.
- Children have a weekly PE slot on their timetable and often do a ‘wake and shake’ or ‘yoga’ session with their teachers.
- Other creative ideas include: helping around the house with chores, walking the dog, doing an online exercise class (Joe Wicks, Cosmic Yoga and others) or going for a ride on their bike or scooter.
Tip 7: Make Time for quiet and reflection
- Every child has an individual way of learning. We appreciate how challenging it can be to have your children at home and how to manage their different needs, especially when children are of different ages. There may be times when children need to work in different rooms to avoid distractions. However, it is still important to make time for you.
- Teachers provide optional mindfulness and well-being activities for the children and there is no reason why you shouldn't practice some of these in your own time.
- It may also be an idea to try noise cancelling headphones, perhaps go for a short walk on your own or try blocking out 15 minutes in your diary.
For children in Years 2 to 6, please read our Twelve Top Tips to Manage Distance Learning
Credits:
Created with images by yohoprashant - "colorful five fingers kid" • LatorreFuenzalida - "snail plasticine lego"