E-LEARNING ACTIVITIES BRING TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND PARENTS TOGETHER

Who would have thought when we left school on the afternoon of March 16th, that we would all be learning from home for so long!  

St. Isaac Jogues students and parents who are assisting their child/children at home through our remote learning adventure, communicate with our teachers, and help to structure the day at home to best “mimic” a school day.  Every school day our teachers deliver well planned, targeted instruction with all of the rigor, challenge, and excellence that has been our standard for Catholic education. The creativity of our teachers is shown through the recording of a video to teach a lesson, accessing Google classroom and hosting a class through Google Meet, the use of Zoom to recite their morning prayers together and hold a discussion, posting a YouTube video of a lesson for review, or using Face Time to be able to meet with a student 1:1; all ways to connect with the students through the human voice.  We will continue to examine ways to ensure the direct instruction for students continues.  Teachers are hitting the grade level benchmarks to ensure our students have the essential skills required to be promoted to the next grade.  Our teachers are extremely pleased with the response they are getting from their students and the quality of work being completed.  We have high expectations regardless of where the work is completed. 

A few highlights of the past few weeks include virtual field trips to the American Cemetery in Normandy, France as they learned about Operation Overlord and D-Day, or viewing the National Museum of Natural History and viewing the 3-D exhibits of the Last American Dinosaur.  The preschoolers, zooming into their morning circle time which starts with a prayer and covers the weather, calendar, letter of the week, while the kindergarteners are experiencing virtual read alouds and making story maps to share with their teachers.  All students are working on expanding their vocabulary, writing responses to their readings, analyzing and evaluating text, and working on their math curriculum at the appropriate level.  Our 8th graders even participated in March Madness by creating google slides of their choice of the world’s most influential scientist in the hopes of making it to the Final Four!  Religion continues with virtual daily prayers, Thankful Thursdays, and looking at the message of the Saint of the Day. 

And last but not least, our Resource department continues to work with individual students who need extra support, and our Reading specialists, Speech pathologist, and Occupational Therapist engage with their students via FaceTime. 

And of course, there continues to be virtual lessons in Physical Education, STEM, with an example of 4th grade studying “Roving on the Moon, Art, focusing on Oceans and Marine Life, and Mrs. Veselik’s weekly library assignments.

As you can see, our teachers and children have been very busy…and this is just a little peak into what they've been working on.