Third grade teacher, Cara has a plan to connect with her students during remote and hybrid learning.

“I’ve made a bitmoji of myself I’m printing out for each child so they’ll all have me at home.

I’m asking them to journal through the week about where they’re taking me. Then they’ll share that with the rest of the class. It’s something fun and it gives them a sense of belonging.

I’m a new teacher at this school and it really helped that during a virtual school town hall the principal spent about 10 minutes introducing me to the families. She gave me her seal of approval and told them a lot about me. It was really nice and I think it helped.

There are twenty-two students in my class. One thing we’ll do at the beginning of the year is ask five or six of them to share something from their house and family every day. That’s a way we can get to know everybody. And as we’re building our google classroom, we’ll format the background to be a virtual version of our actual classroom.  I’ll be able to change the message on the virtual whiteboard to say things to make them feel like this is truly their classroom.

I’m also going to make welcome postcards using my bitmoji teacher and some of the clipart that will also appear in my virtual classroom and a personal message on each one.

I have the option of working from my classroom or working from home, but I went ahead and set up the classroom. I want my students to be able to see it so they feel like they are there even though they’re at home.”

– Cara in San Francisco