Keeping Class FUN & Engaging

Surely there are a ton of ways to keep class engaging and fun, but here are just a few ideas I've tried that have gone well!

Puppets aka Guest Teachers?!

Picture this: the class returns from a snack or bathroom break and up pops a little puppet to temporarily "take over the class" while the teacher is "busy!" Maybe the puppet can teach some sight words or math practice or ??? The looks on their faces will make your entire day!
Then when it's time to switch back, you can flip off your video for a sec and then reappear as yourself and play like you know nothing about what just happened or thank the puppet for filling in for you.
Be creative: you can use actual puppets, stuffed animals, or even just little toys. If you have kids in your life, maybe they'll donate a few little critters to you?
Honestly, video meetings are the ULTIMATE puppet theater. You can hold anything up and they won't see your whole body. Sure they may see your fingers or recognize your voice, but I promise- they will LOOOOVE it!
Pull out the puppets anytime your kids need to wake up and change up the routine!

Videos

Kids looking tired? Losing interest? Have you guys just been working for awhile? Sounds like it's time for a dance break!
Share your computer or iPad screen and get a good old 2-3 minute movement break off of youtube to wake up everyone's brains!
BE AWARE: that when you share your screen, THEY CAN STILL SEE YOU! You might not see yourself, but your camera will still likely be the one highlighted in the corner of their screen so don't sit down and look bored. Get up and get moving right along with them! It'll be refreshing for you and help the kids see that even their cool teacher isn't too cool to dance and have fun.
You can mute yourself and they'll still hear the video.
You can steal one of my movement break playlists at the bottom of this page or by clicking HERE.

Let Them Lead

Instead of it always being YOU to lead the stretches, pledge, song, number corner, or story ...ask if one of them wants to take the lead! You will probably be pleasantly surprised what a nice job they do.
The teacher I share a room with is SO GOOD at doing this often, so I learned this from listening to her.
I try to keep a list of who's had a turn so I can give them equal opportunities.
The classmates will probably love hearing from a new voice and the leaders will love leading! There's no better way to learn than to teach it yourself, right?! :)

Sharing The Pen

There's a little bit of a learning curve here, but if 5 year olds can do it, anyone can. We use this daily and it's really engaging.
I keep annotation enabled all the time. Whenever you share your screen, a tiny pencil icon pops up in the lower left corner of everyone's iPad. if they tap on it, they can write on the screen. Simple as that!
That's where the learning comes in- teach them that it's only okay to use it when you ask them to. :) Good news is that you can set the settings to show you the name of the annotator so if "Jonny" puts a scribble on the screen, you know exactly who it was and can ask them to erase it (or you can erase it yourself, but I usually make them clean up their own mess- haha).
Ways I've used it:

When we share a poem (like THESE), book or morning message (the THESE), I have kids circle certain letters or words.
We do a big shared writing during calendar time (pictured above) and I ask 9 different kids to write on the screen at the same time (I tell them each which item to be in charge of). Kids who aren't writing on the screen are writing the same things on their whiteboards at home.
To play games like Pictionary or tic tac toe. Zoom has a "whiteboard" built in if you just want a plain white page to share writing on. You can play games like this during morning meeting or during a 1:1 meeting.

CHEERS

Remember to use their names often and praise, praise, praise their hard work. You can use signs like the ones pictured or just use silly cheers you might use in regular class. Dr. Jean has a bunch of good ones HERE.
It still surprises me what BIG smiles they get on their faces when I just put up my hand and say something like, "Way to go, ____! HIGH FIVE!" and zoom my hand towards the camera like I'm actually giving them a high five. They usually do it back and it's super cute.

Break Out Rooms

Don't be scared... just dive right in! Kids need and love to have opportunities to chat with each other. The first time I did it, it surprised me how energized and happy they were when they came back from their rooms.
Lots of good lessons will have opportunities to "turn and talk." At those moments, just put the kids into breakout rooms.
There's a setting to have participants automatically moved to the rooms and this is PERFECT for younger kids. I keep it super simple and tell my class just to "not touch anything." I send them to a room and when I want them to come back, I have it set to give them a 10 second warning (you can adjust that time in settings, too). At that point a message comes up on their screen to give them a 10 sec countdown. They still do NOT touch anything and boom- then you're all back together!
Things to know:

They show up in the rooms automatically muted. Tell them to unmute right away and start talking.
Teach them how to take turns and include everyone by saying things like, "____, what do you think?"
You can join their rooms one at a time and check in on them.
This is another time it's nice to be logged in on more than one device- you can peek at several rooms at once. :)
You can add just SOME kids to a breakout room and keep others in the main session.
You can choose how many people you want in each room.
You can choose who works together. I usually just have them randomly assigned and then quickly look through the list and make sure no on needs to rearranged.
If you do a bunch of breakout rooms in one meeting, it will automatically remember the groups for you if you want to keep them the same. If you want to mix them up you can do that, too: just click "reconfigure" in the breakout room menu.

Have Them WAVE

Instead of asking them to raise their hand like we would do in face-to-face class, I have them WAVE it. With about 25 faces on the screen, it's too hard for me to see a calm hand and I don't want to miss anyone.

Activities, Show & Tell, and Question of the Day

All of these really help grow a stronger sense of community! HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
ACTIVITIES: We do "activities" as part of our morning meetings and the kids love them. It can be anything: dance to a song together, play a game like Spot It, red light/green light, charades with vocabulary words, guessing games like 20 questions or heads up, Pictionary, follow the leader, scavenger hunts on Google Earth (SO FUN!) or in their homes, etc. Lots of kids tell me this is one of their favorite parts of our day.
SHOW & TELL: We have a show and tell schedule where 4-5 kids/day get 1 minute each to show us or tell us something. This is the time when we see pets, new baby sisters, toys, etc and hear about what's new for everyone. It's great for practicing speaking in front of peers, listening to each other, and asking questions or making kind comments.
QUESTION of the DAY: Before we did our current show & tell schedule where each child shares once a week, we had a question of the day for the first 7 weeks. Now we just do it on Fridays. It started out pretty basic, like "What's your favorite _____ (animal, color, food, thing to play)?" and we went around and let every kid share. We used the same order each time so they always knew when their turn was coming up.
Honestly, before we started it, I had doubts about this- like- it's going to take SO LONG and I don't want them to lose their focus! But you know what- they loved getting to talk AND getting to know each other more.

Take Hourly Breaks & Think About Your Schedule

The longest I keep my kids on Zoom at a time is an hour. I try to keep them moving and interacting and then once it's been an hour, we take a snack/bathroom break or even just a bathroom break. They stay logged in, but walk away from the iPad.
I put up a visual timer via screen sharing and teach them to turn their camera off and mute. When the timer dings, they all reappear! It goes well.
Really consider what would be the best schedule for your kids as far as balancing the screen time with what needs to be done. If your original plan is not working, don't be afraid to change it! I think we changed our schedule 3 times in the first 2 months before we found the best fit. :)

More Special Guests : The Real People Kind, Not Puppets ;)

Well, one silver lining to distance teaching is that it's probably never been easier to have special guests join your classroom!
Just share your meeting link and you can schedule new faces to be mystery readers or special guest teachers or talk about the latest Vikings game or ???
Kids will love it! People who maybe wouldn't have been available or able to "come to school" before can now easily pop in and out.

Let Them Talk

Maybe the only thing more boring than listening to a teacher lecture is listening to a teacher lecture via video, right?!
This probably goes without saying, but be sure to ask them lots of questions and let them share their thinking as much as possible. You can open breakout rooms or keep them talking in the big group.
GOOD IDEA: In distance teaching we often miss getting to have those casual, but important conversations you could have as kids are walking in your classroom in the morning or packing up at the end of the day. Kids WANT to tell you what they're doing today or that they have a wiggly tooth, etc. Sometimes they even try to blurt those things in the middle of lessons so here's an idea to let them be heard: establish a time either 5 minutes before or after your meeting that you'll be there for ANYONE who has anything important to tell you. A handful of kids need this every day. :)

Remember- not everything should be digital

Again, probably super duper obvious, but I'll say it anyway cause it really is good to have kids work in "traditional" ways while they're still logged on to your meeting.
Make sure kids have whiteboards, journals, pencils, crayons, markers, books, and math manipulatives all accessible at home. Train them to keep these things in a special nearby place so they always have them ready.
During read-to-self or writing time, you can put kids each in their OWN breakout rooms. Have 21 kids? Make 21 breakout rooms! This is the perfect time to pop in and have little conferences with them about what they're working on.
We do "Fun Friday Art" every week, too. Our FAVORITE thing to do is THESE directed drawings with step-by-step directions. They turn out AMAZING. Sometimes we send home construction paper so they're ready to cut and glue something cool. They love it and most of them have their projects hanging on the way behind their workspaces. It's sweet to see.