Teacher’s Brain

Tag: distance learning

Digital Award Ceremony – End of the Year Virtual Classroom Awards

education, Teaching Tips

End of the Year Activities

Celebrating accomplishments at the end of the school year is not only popular, but important to recognize student achievements.  Accomplishments can include more that academic success.  Recognizing improved behavior, attendance, athletics, character, art or music abilities are great ways to shine the spotlight on your students at the end of the year.

Distance learning has made it more difficult to celebrate our students with their friends and family.  But, it is not impossible! If you are an educator who is using Zoom, Google Meets or some other way to video conference your students, there is many ways to celebrate.

First, send and invite to the families and students for your virtual ceremony. If you normally give certificates to students,  fill them out as normal and then share them during the ceremony.  You can than email or mail them their certificate.

Don’t want to worry about printing out certificates?

You can create certificates in a PowerPoint or with Google Slides to share during your meet-up.  Then, just send them a copy through email.  There are lots of pre-made editable certificates available online also.

Planning a Virtual AWARD Ceremony

If you are doing your own planning for your classroom, grade level or even the entire school, here are some key elements to consider:

  • Introduction  Music
  • Introduction Slide to the Ceremony
  • Certificates (Titles and possibly add Images of each student)
  • Music during the show
  • Funny Moment Slide Breaks (A group photo or funny science moment)
  • Will there be a video or live announcement from you, a special guest or the principal?
  • Ending Music
  • Practice Practice Practice

Here is an example of how to create an end of the year virtual ceremony:

There are virtual award ceremony templates already made for you at TpT to make your celebration easy.  You just drag and drop text and images in the google slides.


Do you have an award ceremony for your students? If so, what types of awards do you give? Please leave your comments below, I would love to hear how you recognize your students.

Journaling During the Coronavirus

Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips, Writing

Writing Journal during the Coronavirus for kids

Journaling to Keep Kids Calm

NOW is the time to be journaling! We are all living history right now.  Even though this is a time of uncertainty, there is a lot to learn, feelings to explore, thoughts to organize and people coming together to turn lemons into lemonade.  We didn’t ask for this Coronavirus. Everyday is like living in a strange movie.  One moment you are fine and the next moment the sky is falling.  Journaling is a great way to organize your thoughts.  Students right now should be taking notes of news headlines, observing the stock market fluctuate, and learning about healthy habits.

Should Adults Keep a Journal?

Writing is a great way to confront your emotions during difficult times.  It helps you face your fears.  Taking notes of what is going on in your world, your mind and your home can help you stay mentally healthy.  Journaling serves as a great tool for people at any age!  Start journaling today.

At Home Learning During The Cornonavirus

Teaching Tips

This is a scary time we are living in right now.  Part of me as parent wants to tell the district that we have bigger issues to worry about than distance learning. The teacher part of me knows that students can miss a lot of information in a month or two without instruction.  There is no way that we can replace good teachers with parents or packets to be as effective for our children, but parents can encourage home education during this time.

Are Worksheets the Answer?

You won’t find many teachers who support overloading kids with worksheets, but you also won’t find many who never use worksheets. Sending home packets with students can be a great way to keep students learning if we remember the importance of worksheets.

Just because it’s on paper doesn’t mean it’s bad.  Well-designed worksheets help structure work for children.  Printed resources can keep children on task, help them concentrate and hopefully help them work with very little support from adults. I know lots of teachers who had to scramble to put packets together for students this past week.  Some felt guilty. Others felt like they did a service for their families.  I have used packets in the classroom to organize student work.  Many worksheets are designed to have students work together or provides a hands-on learning game. I sent home spring break packets, summer packets and homework packets regularly to my families to help their children.  

Worksheets as ACTIVITIES

Some worksheets can easily be made into flashcards, tasks for physical or oral activities, puzzles, origami, art or games.  One of my favorite kinds of printables are Write the Room activities.  This is where you place vocabulary words, sentences or pictures around a room. Students must move around to locate each one. Then, they read and write it on a worksheet.

Many worksheets have checkoffs or keys for students to use to monitor their own learning progress.  As a teacher, I can use the worksheets or activities to see how my students are learning.  Parents could check to see if students did the work later instead of having to be there if they have to go to work.  Worksheet packets for students who don’t have access to computers can be very valuable to their education.  What parent doesn’t like to hang a worksheet or piece of art on the refrigerator to show they support their child’s efforts?

Powerful Packets

Teachers would all love to have hands-on “worksheet free” classrooms.  The truth is sometimes you can’t replace old fashion paper and pencil activities. They are valuable when you need assessment tools that show previous knowledge, to view learning outcomes, to share information with other adults and to allow students to monitor the progress of their own learning.

Not all kids can learn from a packet or worksheet which is why the value of a good educator will always be needed for maximum growth. Packets can be powerful though.  So, don’t judge others who find them successful.

Keep helping students to learn, use social distance and keep your hands clean! We are all in this together. Which reminds me of these FREE labels to put on your hand sanitizer bottles to help empower children.

Hand Sanitizer Labels