Back to school time can be stressful on school staff, teachers, and students every year. However, coming back to school during a pandemic is a whole other ball game!
Coming back to school with a lot of unknowns can be challenging for everyone. The 2020-2021 school year presented a huge challenge for teachers, parents, and students. Whether you taught in-person, virtually, a hybrid schedule, or a mix of all of those, it was hard.
Just when many thought the days of virtual learning, social distancing, mask-wearing, and crazy schedules were over, here comes another surge in the Covid 19 pandemic. So, it is no surprise that socially distanced classrooms and school buildings are not a thing of the past just yet.
Here are five tips for successfully returning to school with social distancing:
- Continue Morning Meetings or Community Building with Students
Usually, my morning class meetings start on the carpet in a class circle. We greet each other, discuss important reminders for the day, and do a class discussion or activity. These activities are great for building classroom community, building social skills, and starting the day on a good note. At the beginning of the year, morning meetings are the perfect way to introduce and practice the classroom expectations and discuss any worries that students have about the upcoming school year.
Don’t cross these meetings off of your lesson plans just yet! Morning meetings can still take place with social distancing. All is not lost! You can use the same format for meetings, just without sitting together. Students can sit at their desks and greet others with air fives or waves instead of handshakes and fist bumps. You can still do class activities and have important discussions, even when you aren’t sitting together as a class family.
- Introduce Safety Rules with Social Stories
Social stories are learning tools that include relevant examples of social exchanges and information during the story and are usually used to teach a specific skill. Introducing rules and expectations with social stories are very effective because students and children get to see different situations play out how they might in the real world!
I created this Wearing a Mask Social Story to help students understand the reason for mask-wearing during this pandemic. Wearing a mask, or seeing other people wear masks, can cause uncertainty, curiosity, or anxiety in many children. This social story was created to bring an understanding to children about how and why we are currently wearing masks. This story is one that many children will be able to relate to and connect with this year!
Check out this previous blog post about returning to school during the Covid 19 pandemic. I wrote last summer that includes a step-by-step plan for how I introduce rules and safety practices to students in the classroom.
- Involve Students in Creating New Rules
It’s no secret that students love to be involved in the creation of their classroom community. Children can learn to think about what they want their classroom experience to be like and how they can contribute to that community. They learn to see that feeling safe and belonging within the community takes the establishment of set rules and expectations.
When creating your classroom rules, have students help! Create a t-chart and add the titles students and teacher to the top. Ask students to describe what they’d like their classmates to be like and what they would like their teacher to be like by listing adjectives for each one.
Then, examine the list you all created together and discuss why those characteristics and attributes might be important in creating a safe classroom where everyone learns.
Next, come up with a list of about 3-5 rules that encompass these attributes! For example, keeping safe is always a huge rule at school. A class rule for that could be: “I keep myself and my classmates safe at all times.” This rule covers all safety-related things like….things like no hitting, no jumping off the swings, no taking off your mask, etc…. Write these rules down and have all students sign it like a class contract or promise. Keep them posted all year long.
So when little Sally jumps off a chair in class, you can say, “Are you keeping yourself and your classmates safe at all times?”
Having been a part of the creation of these rules and expectations, students will feel more connected and understand why these rules are important to follow!
- Prepare Students for Virtual Learning, Just in Case
We don’t know what this year will look like while things are changing every day and each school district has their own rules about how to handle those changes. So, it is a good idea to prepare your students early for the possibility of returning to virtual learning at some point in the year. This way, students will know exactly what to do if learning environments need to change quickly. Being prepared will reduce anxiety and lost learning time too!
So, from the very beginning, create a backup plan. You could create a set of lessons, like you would for an emergency substitute, online for your students to complete. Have students write down login credentials and practice logging in to the various online learning platforms they may need to access.
Check out this previous blog post about using a remote learning social story to help students prepare for the possibility of returning to virtual learning or a hybrid schedule.
- Model and Practice Social Distancing Expectations
Students need explicit modeling and practice of any rules. Especially, anytime there has been a long break. Many students did not come to school at all last year at all and have not had to social distance from others.
It is important to show students what you mean by social distance. How many feet apart? How can they move around the classroom, hallways, bathrooms, lunchroom, library, specials classes, etc while socially distancing? Be sure to show your students what are some safe, socially distanced ways of moving around the school building.
Here are some general tutorial videos about how to social distance from We Are Teachers: https://www.weareteachers.com/social-distancing-videos/
Looking for More?
Looking for lesson plans with everything you need to teach students about the safety expectations for returning to school? Check out this Covid 19 Return to School Bundle of resources that includes a social story about returning to school, teaching new rules and expectations Venn Diagram, safety posters, and a step-by-step poster for handwashing!
I hope you got some valuable information to take back to your classroom from this post! Which tip for returning did you find most helpful? Do you have any tips to share with me?
