No Manipulatives? No Problem!

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Teachers of young children know that engaging, hands-on experiences are critical for development and retention of skills. In a typical year, our youngest learners spend the bulk of their day manipulating letter tiles, blocks, beans, dough, stamps, chips -- you name it -- to solidify their conceptual understandings and create lasting learning. This year, new guidelines for the current pandemic, and shifting to and from virtual learning, posed a problem. How can we provide these same hands-on experiences for our students while still adhering to the guidelines regarding use of shared materials and social distancing? Stout Field kindergarten teacher Rhonda Arthur has found a way that works in her virtual classroom and she plans to take this idea forward when she returns to brick and mortar.

While we can’t replace all sensory and tactile experiences with technology, we can use technology to create opportunities for hands-on practice. Mrs. Arthur has begun using Jamboard to allow her students to manipulate letters. Each week, students participate in a word sort and a word building activity for their focus phonics patterns. Mrs. Arthur prepares a Jamboard with sound boxes and letter tiles for students to use with their word sort. She uses a district-prepared Jamboard with words written on virtual post-it notes for the weekly word sort! As young as kindergarten, she has found success sharing the link to the Jamboard in the chat bar and having students navigate out to their work. She is able to watch them moving the virtual manipulatives to build and sort words over Lightspeed Classroom.

This has worked very well for her class while virtual. Mrs. Arthur believes it will continue to work and cut back on her prep time when back in the brick and mortar classroom. When asked why she will continue using virtual letter tiles upon our return to the school building she answered, “It cuts down on the management piece. Teachers won’t have to cut or sort letter cards. Students won’t have to worry about losing pieces or orienting letters the correct way. This frees up the time and brain space to focus on the actual skill we are practicing.”

Written by Samantha Kelly and Ben Weaver, Stout Field iTEC Teachers