EMAIL TO PARENTS

Our first week of At Home School is over and done. Great job everyone! Now that we know we are in it for even longer than anticipated, I have been working on better and easier ways to help you. If you have older children, you might be familiar with Google Classroom. If not, you can learn with me haha. I spent today setting it up for each of your children. I even went into their site to see what they'd see and to set it all up. This should make it way easier for them, and you, to start using.

Normally I would teach the kids that they have a gmail account with the school and how to use it. I would also be teaching them about google drive and google docs. Well, this virus kind of changed our plans. Now you get to show your child how to access their google drive. 

If they are using their chrome books, they can just go into google (it's the first page they see before hitting portaportal). Up in the right hand corner there will be nine little dots. If they click on them, it will give them lots of options. You want to hit the one that shows a chalkboard and says classroom. This will take them into google classroom. It will have a message there already from me. they can respond if they like. Remember, class comment will show everyone in our class, private comment will just let me see. Google classroom also has different subjects. I have left an assignment in each one. This is mostly for me to practice with but check it out so you get used to getting in and out. There are links on some or just directions. On the right hand side you can either send work back to me or just click the black done box. Most of our work will be hitting the done box. I'm not so sure they're ready to attach files at this point haha.

If your child does not have his/her chrome book, it will be a few extra steps to get in. First go to google.com and sign into your child's account. I will email each one of you privately with your child's usernames and passwords. Once they are in, just go to the menu (nine dots) and hit classroom like above.

I think this might be easier than giving you all tons and tons of things. I can give assignments daily with links. I will change up activities so they won't get stuck on one thing. However, I will still keep up with the blog and parent emails. You can definitely pick from some of the stuff I sent home day one. I just know it was a lot all at once.

Your child might need help reading directions and even getting to the classroom. This is all brand new. It would take me showing them on the projector as they do it a few classes to get them to feel at all comfortable. Be patient. Even I am learning. Also, older siblings can probably be a HUGE help because third grade up uses this. Our kids are going to be so advanced!

I'm still looking into using google hangout and zoom. I need to figure out which is easier. I will be holding online sessions hopefully beginning Wednesday of next week. With those I will pick a time and everyone that can get on will meet online. I know this will not work for all. However, I want to try as many different resources as I can to make this easier for everyone and to keep the kids feeling connected.

I'll be sending out the usernames and passwords within the hour. Thank you for your support! Say hi to your kids for me!