“Anything is Popsicle in 3^rd Grade”

As with most teachers entering the 2020-2021 school, I was scared, concerned, and unsure of what the school year was going to bring.  As with most school years, I started my back-to-school planning with my bulletin board, which said “Anything is Popsicle in 3^rd Grade.” I purchased it from Teachers Pay Teachers. Our plan was to go back in-person, and everyone was required to wear masks, we had to keep desks separated, check temperatures every morning, and numerous other safety protocols. I was confident in my ability to monitor and control all of those factors, but the one aspect I was concerned about was how to teach virtually.

We were all hopeful we wouldn’t have to “go virtual,” but the reality was that it could happen at any time, and the students needed to be prepared. So, we started right away practicing how to use Google Classroom, all the different ways to contact me, if they had questions, where to find passwords, if they forgot them, how to submit assignments, and how to open assignments, along with the “normal” lessons that we have any other year.

The school year progressed, and my students were rock stars. They kept their masks on. (Yes, all day, over their noses and their mouths, and yes, I had to remind the same students to pull them up multiple times a day, just as I would if they were out of their seats or talking when they weren’t supposed to be.) They practiced the technology and we got in a groove with how things were working. But, just like other parts of the country, COVID-19 kept getting worse and seemed to be creeping in closer and closer.

My district decided to have a Remote Learning Practice Day. I was confident my students could work the technology. I was less confident in my students having access to the technology, at their homes. I struggled with parents needing to go somewhere else to find access or to have to sit in a parking lot somewhere, while their child accessed my class. Everyone was struggling in different ways, and I didn’t want to add to their load of unknowns.

Of course we had communicated with parents and sent out surveys and provided resources, so that parents had access at home, but I was nervous about the entire situation.  The district had sent out requirements for the Remote Learning Day. We needed to give the students assignments in a couple different content areas and they had to log on and Google Meet with me. All of which we had practiced. But, I’d struggled with setting a set time for a Google Meet, because I knew parents had different responsibilities at home, for example, they could be at work during my time, and the student wouldn’t have help to get on, if they needed it. Or they wouldn’t be around a computer until the evening, but the Google Meet was set for the morning. I decided to set “working hours.” I would be online for two hours at a time for a couple different times, and they had to pop on and talk to me. I hoped this worked for everyone.

The Practice Remote Learning Day arrived, and I was prepared with my checklist of names to see who would actually Google Meet with me. My first time was set to start at 9 am. At 8:55 am, I clicked in to Google Meet and held my breath to see if it would actually work. Within minutes the students’ smiling faces started popping up on the screen. They were laughing and smiling and waving and saying hello to everyone. I was beyond relieved and we chatted and I starting ticking off names. I sent them off on their own, and told them that I would be there if they needed me. After they had clicked, off I was only missing two students. I left the Google Meet open and went to the teacher across the hallway to express my excitement of it all actually working. While I was there I could hear voices coming from my classroom, it was the other two students! All of my students had signed-on and interacted with me and were off to do their work. Over the next couple of hours, some students would pop in to say they were done or to ask questions or to make sure there wasn’t anything else to do. The day was a success!

Given the stress and the uncertainly of the school year, this was a memorable and good day in my teaching career. It was something that I had never expected to go through, but we had made it work and we were going to be fine. It made us all a little less stressed. Truly, “Anything is Popsicle in 3^rd Grade.”

(We wound up going in-person the entire school year, minus the week before Christmas and the week after Christmas. During those weeks, we took the hybrid route, where we split the class and had half the students two days a week and the other half the other two days, and everyone was virtual on Wednesdays.)