Today's Plan: PlanBook

As I wrote the heading above, it was a little unsettling to my stomach.  While we are all dealing with this pandemic in our own way, it made me thankful that I am currently only inconvenienced by the "Stay at Home".  I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you that work in sectors of our community where you are required to help keep our world running during this time. Yes, I am focused on providing learning opportunities for your children, but I get to do it from the safety of my home.  We have families with loved ones in  heath care, law enforcement, firefighting, retail, grocery, food industry, and more that are still having to work outside the house during this time...Thank you for all you do.

Students, now is a time for our learning this year of empathy to be put to good use.  Make sure your family knows how much you appreciate them and love all they do for you to keep you safe.

This week will be one of more enrichment opportunities for our students.  I will be posting daily and we will have a couple of web calls this week, mostly to allow the kids to have a chance to interact, share, and ask questions.

Next week is Spring Break, yep Spring Break.  I will not be posting anything next week as I work to prepare us for more focused learning when we return on April 14th to Distance Learning.

Take care of yourselves, call/text a family/friend you haven't contacted in a while, and let me know if I can help.

I have adjusted my 1-1 meeting times.  Please plan on attending this time with your child if possible.  Schedule a 1-1 and see new schedule on Calendly.

Today's Plan: PlanBook

​We have made it to the end of week two.  As planned, that means we have, hopefully, only 5 more weeks until we can get back to school. 

Again, it is important that while we are not together in the classroom, students are using the tools provided to enrich their learning.  As a quick check, there are about 8 students who have yet to do any of the enrichment activities.

This is an important life lesson for us as parents, educators, and as students to take ownership in our responsibilities and make every effort to participate in learning.

Thank you parents for working hard during this time.  As a parent, I am constantly concerned about my family.  As an educator, I am also concerned about the health of all the students and their families, not only for their education, but also their health.  I know how difficult this time is for all of us, but the more we can stay connected, the more we will come out of this with momentum towards the future.

Hi Families. You have all made it to the first weekend of our new learning situation. I wanted to offer some friendly advise. As always, take-it or leave-it:

• ​Unless you are working on something with them, let this be a different schedule and feeling then during the week. This should help them differentiate the expectations Monday through Friday.
• Do something as a family. Play a game, read a book aloud together, bake, cook, clean, garden, go for a walk, sing a song, do a puzzle. Think back to your childhood and enjoy in connecting your kids to what you did when you were their age.
• Binge watch some movies. Star Wars, Back to the Future, Gremlins, Harry Potter. Or go back further and watch some classics: Wizard of Oz, E.T., Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor or Mary Poppins (two of my all-time favorites.)
• Check on elderly neighbors. Do they need anything? Could they just use someone saying hello to them? Be mindful of social distancing.
• Play-with, are actively watch, you kids play a video game. Ask then questions about the game. It will show you care, allow you to connect with what is important to them, and at the same time will annoy them a little (yep, it’s your turn!!)
• Be sate. Be kind. Be thankful.

I want to make sure that I am sharing any information I can with you while at home.  Being proactive and over communicating are two simple ways I can help.

• I have heard that our district is working to come up with a plan.  I do not have any further details. Know, whatever the plan is, I will make sure and adapt/modify it to meet the needs of my class.
• I have a scheduled conference call today with HHSA admin and staff.  This will be a check-in and share.  I hope to have more insights of what other teachers are doing.
• I am formulating a schedule to begin next week.  I attended a distance learning webinar last night from the California Teachers Association.  It was very insightful and I will use it to plan our next steps.
• I do not have any updates on printed materials. We were initially being allowed to go to our classrooms and get materials today, but after Governor Newsom's "stay at home" order, that was cancelled.  As soon as I can, I will get materials and we will figure out a way to distribute them to families.
• I will be modifying my planbook to provide information and schedules for students.

Reminder:  I will be hosting a test conference call with students today at 1:00.  The purpose of this will be to help students get their devices setup to be able to connect as we move forward.  Please check out the Student Blog for information on how to connect.

Since we use Chromebooks at school, and Google is a huge part of our digital ecosystem, I recommend downloading and installing the Chrome browser for your computer.  With Chrome, students will log-in with their same username and password from school, and all of their bookmarks, plug-ins (like Kami), and saved password will be available to them.  This also allows you to log out of your account on a shared pc, limiting what your child has access to.
Follow these steps to get Chrome and get them connected:

If you don't have Chrome

1. Go here to download: https://www.google.com/chrome/
2. Install the software. 
3. After you have successfully installed and started Chrome, you should be presented with a button to "Sign in".
4. This is where your student will use their school email address (must enter username followed by @menifeeusd.org) and password.

If you already have Chrome

1. Open Chrome if it is not already open.
2. In the top right corner, you should see a round circle icon.  This may have a picture, or a colored letter, etc.
3. Click on that icon to open the profile menu.
4. At the very bottom of the menu, there will be an option to "+  Add".
5. Give the profile a name and choose an icon. 
6. There is also an option to "Create a desktop shortcut for this user", make sure that is selected. This will give them their own link to start the Chrome browser with their information.
7. A new Chrome browser window will start.  On the splash page, you will see an option at the bottom "Already a Chrome user? Sign in"
8. This is where your student will use their school email address (must enter username followed by @menifeeusd.org) and password.

Please let me know if you are not able to get this setup, as I can try and connect remotely to help.