My family is--thankfully--taking a long time to come back from social distancing. We're doing a few things, but remain entirely cautious about being out and about. One thing that I've added back into my schedule is my adult tap class! There are three adults in the class + one teacher, and the studio where we rehearse is large. We tap while wearing masks (it's so hard to breathe!), and we stay in our very own lanes if we have to cross the floor. For five weeks during this distancing time, we held class over Zoom. Ours is the main adult class in the studio (the other classes cater to tiny humans), so we were the first group to come back into the studio because we are AWESOME at following social distance directions.
The studio opened up this week to have more classes meeting in person. Without going into the protocols that are in place at the dance studio (because that's not the true purpose of this post), I want to share what our tap teacher told us about the tiny humans who have been returning in person:
their sparkle is missing.
You know "sparkle." It's the look in their eyes when they're totally ON in class and engaged. Imagine how students who are having a fully body experience in a tap class could possible be missing their sparkle! The educators in the room (3 out of the 4 adults in the room educate tiny humans in some way) agreed that it's been a lot of screen time between online delivery of instruction and regular screen entertainment. The sparkle was overshadowed by a glassy-eyed look and the teacher had a hard time getting students (who were normally ALL IN for dance class) to really connect with her.
Out of her day full of classes, only 3 students had their sparkle.
That got me to thinking about how we could help our students find their sparkle when we see them next in person. I anticipate that it won't be enough to simply be together in the building. For the staff members, we'll be excited to be with our friends and colleagues once more. For our students--as ever--we need to plan to go that extra mile right out of the gate.
My idea is this:
Welcome & first week activities that incorporate the five senses. Help your students to awaken their bodies to be ready for learning. There are a plethora of ideas that could go along with the five senses, and I've listed just a few below. Hopefully my meager offering of ideas will: a. find funding from your school (if you submit your idea in time for someone to go on a school shopping errand or ask your PTA to help!); b. be a springboard for you to create your own, because my list certainly isn't exhaustive; and, c. make you excited to do something you've never done before when welcoming students back.
- We need to see more natural light. Get yourself and your students out in some natural light before they are under the florescent lights for 8+ hours.
- Take your class outside and have them sit on a towel as you get to talk to them. Collect enough towels to have a class set so you can get out there in the morning while it's cool (hey, Texas heat in August) and introduce natural light into their lives in a purposeful way. Everyone almost always has a towel that's seen better days and would make a FANTASTIC morning meeting mat for your class.
- Create a class spirit stick where every student gets to contribute using a heavy duty cardboard tube that they decorate with different textures of papers/fuzzy items. Give some guidelines on what each tube needs to display and then hot glue the tubes together after school for the spirit tube to be displayed throughout the year in your class. As students join, they can create their own tube to be added to the class collection.
- Have a scent challenge. Gather some herbs from someone in your neighborhood, or click some into your online cart for curbside pickup. Let students waft those different scents to awaken their sense of smell.
- While you're outside having your class meeting and soaking in some natural light, have students take an inventory of the different sounds they hear. This does't have to be a pencil and paper activity; it can be as quick as a turn and talk after they've noted some sounds.
- I'd wager a bet that kids will have been eating about the same kind of food for the majority of the time they've been learning from home and on summer break. To awaken the sense of taste, I'd love to know if the food and nutrition department could come on in and make a taste test happen s in the first week of school. If the nutrition department can't make it happen, giving your class fruits and vegetables is not against the foods of minimal nutritional value.
I don't have a classroom of my own anymore because I'm an assistant principal. If a teacher came to me asking for help with any of the above ideas, I'd be happy to make a bag of carrots happen, bring a towel (or ten), or buy different textures of paper for a class to use to decorate a spirit tube. We have to awaken the senses and give the sparkle back to our tiny humans. In the process of giving the tiny humans their sparkle back, we'll grab some of that sparkle, too!