Zoom school, your experience

Fabulous

Wed, May 20 2020, 12:43 pm

Only my 4 year old has (the other ones have on the phone, which Is much worse).

It’s good. 10-11:30. It’s kindergarten age so mostly 5 year olds. The morah either prepares a booklet for pickup or sends the stuff for us to print out in the beginning of each week. She also texts any thing we will need for an activity I.e. chocolate chips, spoon, marker, bracelet or scrunchy etc. there’s no break but the kids run away to their mothers any time they need anything. The annoying part is that my house is open concept so she can’t really have a room to herself on the main floor (near me) so my other kids walk in and bother her. It’s not ideal, but she’s really learning and still socializing with her friends in some form.

The phone business is awful

amother

Orchid

Wed, May 20 2020, 12:57 pm

My three yr old has half hr of zoom every day and it’s the time my two older kids have break so we usually skip it and they al play outside.

My pre 1a has a 45 min Hebrew class, a half hr English class and a 15 min reading group every day. Morning class she goes to. English class it’s a battle but I usually get her on. Reading groups I don’t even bother. Gotta pick your battles.

My seven yr old is working out very well. He has a class from 930-1030, then 1115 to 12 and then 1230 to 1. English is live from 130-2 and then they have a bunch of precorded English videos to keep them busy till 4. Does school very nicely till 2. Then it’s time to play. There is only so much time a seven yr old can be staring at his screen alone in his bedroom.

This is far from perfect but way better then phone. We had phone till pesach and switched after.

amother

Violet

Wed, May 20 2020, 1:22 pm

I have a preK kid and a K kid currently doing Zoom.

They both get about 1-3 hours of live group Zoom time per day, some of which is more social than instructional. This includes Art and Music, and fun stuff like storytime. Once a week, they have a live Zoom group lunch.

The K kid gets 40 minutes of live 1-on-1 Zoom time per week, 20 for General Studies, and 20 for Kriyah, split into 10 minute periods. The preK kid gets 10 minutes of 1-on-1 per week, in General Studies.

The school also provides them accounts for math and reading apps. Doing those is mandatory for the kindergartener (30 minutes per day total), optional for the PreK.

For Kriyah, there is a separate site they use, where the kindergarteners use flashcards made by the teacher to practice Kriyah. They submit videos of themselves for the teacher to review.

cuties' mom

Wed, May 20 2020, 2:17 pm

My 8th grader has zoom for math, English and science for 40 minutes. In the beginning, the kids were horrible. When the math teacher wrote a problem on whiteboard, kids would scribble all over. When he figured out how to check who is annotating, they kept switching names. Now the teacher set the controls so nobody could switch names or chat. D's is now learning the same as in school.
My younger son gets aba, speech therapy, ot, and music on zoom. He went from being the most challenging kid in the school to being the zoom superstar. He loves seeing himself on the screen and is a model student.
Dh and I both teach on zoom. I do an hour of seit and an hour of setts; she does a half hour preschool circle time.

amother

Wine

Wed, May 20 2020, 2:27 pm

I have 2 children in school at the moment, 1 in middle school and 1 in preschool. The middle schooler is busy all day from 9-3:30 with breaks for "recess" and lunch and mincha. Some classes are live on Zoom, some are pre-recorded video lessons, and some are reading and writing assignments. It's working out pretty well. My child is keeping up with the classwork independently and enjoys having something to do all day even if individual classes may be boring at times.

My preschooler has 2 Zoom sessions a day, 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. They're usually somewhere between 30-45 minutes, except they recently added an extra 15 minutes twice a week before the afternoon class where they break up the children into smaller groups for more individual attention. The teachers are being creative in keeping the children engaged and I think it's working pretty well, but it's too short and the children are bored the rest of the day.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, May 20 2020, 6:07 pm

It's basically working for most of my kids but definitely not ideal. At all.

Meaning we are in survival/maintenance mode. Any extra growth is a bonus.

My high schooler has around 5 hours a day plus independent work in 4 subjects

Middle school son something like that too

Middle school daughter slightly less zoom time but otherwise the same.

Middle elementary has about 3 hours and 1 hour of expected independent work.

Younger elementary 2-2.5 hours and about an hour of independent work (not getting done)

Preschool has daily videos and activities and projects and about 2 hours a week of whole department zoom, once a week with just class.

amother

Green

Thu, May 21 2020, 1:16 am

10th grader has regular 3 sedarim on Zoom and then his usual 5 period secular studies periods are basically independent assignments and not live teaching (not happy at all with this, but he loves it since he can do a week’s worth of assignments in one session and then be free the rest of the week). Then regular night seder via zoom. He is definitely shteiging and probably learning more hours than before quarantine.
6th grader has Rebbe from 9:45-1:30 with a couple of 15 minute breaks. Then from 2:30 he has 4 half hour sessions for each secular studies subject. He’s doing great, probably the same learning as he would gain in the classroom. It helps that his rebbe is a superstar and gives gishmak lessons all the time.
4th grader has Morah from 9:30-10:15, 10:30-11:15, 11:30-12. Then lunch break. Secular studies from 12:30-1:15 and 1:30-2:15. I wish there was a longer lunch break and they pushed off the secular studies since 2:30 is plenty early, no reason they can’t give an hour break and end at 3:00, but they offer specials from 2:30-3:15 (that she doesn’t bother attending) so I guess that’s why. Yoga, art, computers. She is learning less Chumash, yahadus. Not sure why. The teacher is amazing and very organized. She is just finding it harder to focus and pay attention when the teacher is reviewing pesukim etc. nothing terrible and she’s following well enough, but definitely missing the excitement and spark she got from being in the classroom. On the other hand, the secular studies is going wonderfully for her. She got a teacher this year who is basically a control freak and we’ve had lots of friction where my daughter was told she can’t doodle, go ahead in her workbook, fidget with origami, or utilize any of her usual coping mechanisms when she ‘chapped’ the lesson and is bored. She was expected to sit straight with her arms folded in her lap. So now she is tuning in while she makes friendship bracelets, does random workbook pages, paces. She’s so happy and less stressed!
Finally my pre1a kid has 4 daily sessions, same setup as 4th grader, but they are shorter- 40/45 minutes. First davening and then parsha or pirkei avos or yom tov learning (lag baomer, shavuos). Then kriya and ivrit with smaller breakout rooms, then after lunch they do the reading and handwriting and phonics work, and then some math or a science experiment or a project in the final session. She is having the hardest time of all the kids. She misses her friends. Sometimes it’s hard to follow the teacher, especially when she unmutes the girls so she can make sure they are following, and then there’s a lot of background noise. She’ll also get bored of a lesson and walk away so she misses 5 minutes later when it gets exciting again. But in general she is BH present for >80% of the day, which seems pretty good based on comparing with classmates and other kids her age. And BH all the pre reading skills, sight word drills, and beginning sentences she was picking up over the year are now being reinforced and built on so she isn’t losing all those skills, as I feared might happen after Purim.
I’m lucky the schools and teachers in my neighborhood are so beyond amazing.