Finding the right preschool curriculum can be difficult, especially if you’re teaching online. Teachers often find themselves looking for a balance of workbooks and hands-on activities that are interesting enough to keep kids engaged while still age-appropriate. This post will outline some of the best tips to help you teach preschoolers online and provide them with an exciting session each day!
Set a Routine and Stick to it
Introducing your child to a virtual classroom can be an exciting new experience. To ensure they know what is going on, greet each student as they join the room and share some excitement about being in class with you! If possible, engage the entire class with singing, dance moves, art activities like painting, or their favorite book reading session. We are sure your students will fall in love with you when you teach them how they love!
Keep Activities Short
When in-person, children might have the capacity to sit in circle time or whole group for an entire ten minutes, but that same activity doesn’t hold their attention when viewed on a conferencing platform such as Google Classroom or Zoom. Instead, try breaking them into small chunks with lots of movement embedded so that you can always keep an eye on all of them!
Partner with Families
Preschool online learning requires teachers and parents to work together as a team. In fact, without the help of the parents, it’s difficult to bring out the best in your lessons. There are many ways you can ask parents to help you out before and after the class! Talk with them separately and design a curriculum they agree with.
Adopt a Growth Mindset
Experimenting with different teaching approaches is an important aspect of the learning process. We understand it’s a new experience for you and the children, so experimenting with what suits you the best can help you progress! Remember that every experiment provides more information to help inform your next lesson plan.
Remember that Preschoolers’ Attention Spans are Short
It is difficult for toddlers to sit for an extended period, especially when attending a virtual school. A teacher’s curriculum should be designed so that it has fun lessons and a few offline breaks. You can utilize these offline breaks as a part of the curriculum and encourage them to perform something interesting! Maybe a paint session or recording a video?
Get Kids Moving
When you’re looking for a way to keep the little ones engaged, try alternating between active and passive activities. You can do this by having them create dance patterns or participate in quick scavenger hunts around their homes (find three green things), which will allow them then regroup online together so that everyone has had some fun moving while finding objects too!
Make Your Lesson do Double (Or Triple) Duty
For preschoolers, activities can offer an introduction to topics that are important for them as they grow. Learning about language and literacy skills goes hand-in-hand with the process of developing your child’s reading abilities. Math concepts will help build up number sense while supporting more advanced understanding of science or social studies. Furthermore, these domain crossing benefits give kids a chance at understanding complex subjects through multiple disciplines outside their own field – which means all sorts of things have been made simpler by being introduced early on!
In practice? If you’re exploring seasons during playtime today, use a book from each discipline: one might explore how weather changes over time while another introduces new terms such as “winter.”
Lean in With Compassion
Online preschool wasn’t listed as an available course for pre-service teachers. However, it’s important to note that early childhood educators are experts at understanding young children and creating developmentally appropriate learning environments—and you might have more tools in your toolbox than you think!
Don’t forget to show some empathy to the families as well. They have been in the same situation as you for months now and trying their best to balance things!
Try to Display the Books Directly on the Screen
Reading aloud can be an excellent way to interact with your class, but the session can come out even better if you try to display what you are reading on the children’s screens with the help of Ebooks. This will give them a clear picture and encourage them to read on their own! If they see clear images on the screen, chances are they will be more interested and engaged than just holding the book and reading aloud.
If you are stuck and can’t get out of the monotonous loop, these tips will help you make every day enjoyable! We understand it can get tricky and challenging, especially when dealing with toddlers, but nothing is impossible, and you should never lose your hopes on that!
