Growing Places
Staff at a child care organization assemble 150 backpacks with take-home activities for children to do on remote learning days at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Growing Place’s SI Story
This interview takes place with an executive director and coordinator at a rural child care organization that serves 500 children ages birth to 12.
Do any stories come to mind about what you’ve been doing recently?
We started a different type of events last fall as a way to get more families to participate...We did the events at drop off or pick up and made each program last about 20 minutes or for however long it took. We did things like pumpkin painting with the families- we took over the whole gym and made stations around the gym so families could each have a spot. And the families absolutely went crazy- they loved it. Then we did another similar event before the holidays. We had other events in the same format planned for the year, but that’s as far as we got because of COVID. Hopefully we can do these events again, but in a socially distant way, probably outside.
We adapted. We stopped, reassessed and moved forward. We basically presented our curriculum as distance learning, but not like one-on-one distance learning. We didn’t do Zoom or anything like that with the kids. We created a Google folder that was a public folder that all the families could access. And then we put all of our curriculum in there, art projects, science experiments. The teachers did an amazing job creating interactive learning tools, reading stories, singing songs, we even went on a virtual bear hunt. I took the kids on a virtual hike in the woods.
We really tried to keep families engaged. We called families just to check in. I would call them from time to time just to see how they were doing and to see if they were using the lessons the teachers created. Usually at the end of the year we have a big picnic where we invite all the classes and hand out certificates of completion. Getting used to the COVID thing, you don’t want to make any mistakes so you don’t try to bring anybody together. Since we couldn’t have a big picnic, we had each class come individually to our parking lot. The teachers and I stood out there and cheered and clapped and waved and threw confetti as the cars drove up, then the children were handed their certificates. It was different, but it was a lot of fun.
We also put together a care package for the children. It included items like sunglasses with a little note written on it: “sunglasses for always keeping a sunny disposition.” We handed these out and mailed these to children who weren’t coming back, so they have that sort of closure before they go to kindergarten.
Have you felt any difference or shifts at all in that feeling of relationships with families?
I think in some cases you’re more connected having gone through this COVID event with them. The families appreciate the effort being made and they reach out and say that their children miss the teachers because they didn’t get to see them. Each center also did a video of all the teachers saying “hi” to the kids, holding up I Miss You signs, those kinds of things. So as far as this goes, I feel like we’re as connected as we could have been. And the online learning team was amazing: how you can keep connected and do such excellent work while being apart is what’s fascinating.
Some of our teachers got paid through the rest of the year. So it was not hard for us to ask them to create the distance learning content. Whereas teachers in our other program were on unemployment so we were not allowed to ask them to do it. But we shared the distance learning content with all of our families, regardless of which program they’re in and the families really appreciated it.
Have there been any resources that have been helpful for you as you think about engaging with families online?
I’m really hesitant about online presentations- teachers is one thing, but putting children online I feel uncomfortable about. So we’ve probably drug our feet more. I believe young families really enjoy connecting online. But I have to say: I think they enjoy it up until they don’t. And when they don’t, it goes very badly- which is one of the reasons we’re taking a tip toe into that arena.
It’s just this virtual world of everyone being connected- I don’t think we know enough about it yet to know if it’s okay for children or not. The teachers would be vulnerable too. I feel like we’re pushing against a tide in that area. It’s just been the way of early childhood, to push for what’s developmentally appropriate for preschoolers. It’s hard to fight against it all the time. For example, life would be a lot easier if we did a preschool graduation, but the children don’t understand it and it’s not developmentally appropriate, so we don’t do it. But explaining those kinds of things, especially in this virtual world, is more difficult. So anyway, that’s engagement in not a fun way. But again, we all got through the stay-at-home period and I try to show families and help them to understand what we do to celebrate the child without that special moment, in a different way.
Do any stories come to mind about what you’ve been doing recently?
We started a different type of events last fall as a way to get more families to participate...We did the events at drop off or pick up and made each program last about 20 minutes or for however long it took. We did things like pumpkin painting with the families- we took over the whole gym and made stations around the gym so families could each have a spot. And the families absolutely went crazy- they loved it. Then we did another similar event before the holidays. We had other events in the same format planned for the year, but that’s as far as we got because of COVID. Hopefully we can do these events again, but in a socially distant way, probably outside.
We adapted. We stopped, reassessed and moved forward. We basically presented our curriculum as distance learning, but not like one-on-one distance learning. We didn’t do Zoom or anything like that with the kids. We created a Google folder that was a public folder that all the families could access. And then we put all of our curriculum in there, art projects, science experiments. The teachers did an amazing job creating interactive learning tools, reading stories, singing songs, we even went on a virtual bear hunt. I took the kids on a virtual hike in the woods.
We really tried to keep families engaged. We called families just to check in. I would call them from time to time just to see how they were doing and to see if they were using the lessons the teachers created. Usually at the end of the year we have a big picnic where we invite all the classes and hand out certificates of completion. Getting used to the COVID thing, you don’t want to make any mistakes so you don’t try to bring anybody together. Since we couldn’t have a big picnic, we had each class come individually to our parking lot. The teachers and I stood out there and cheered and clapped and waved and threw confetti as the cars drove up, then the children were handed their certificates. It was different, but it was a lot of fun.
We also put together a care package for the children. It included items like sunglasses with a little note written on it: “sunglasses for always keeping a sunny disposition.” We handed these out and mailed these to children who weren’t coming back, so they have that sort of closure before they go to kindergarten.
Have you felt any difference or shifts at all in that feeling of relationships with families?
I think in some cases you’re more connected having gone through this COVID event with them. The families appreciate the effort being made and they reach out and say that their children miss the teachers because they didn’t get to see them. Each center also did a video of all the teachers saying “hi” to the kids, holding up I Miss You signs, those kinds of things. So as far as this goes, I feel like we’re as connected as we could have been. And the online learning team was amazing: how you can keep connected and do such excellent work while being apart is what’s fascinating.
Some of our teachers got paid through the rest of the year. So it was not hard for us to ask them to create the distance learning content. Whereas teachers in our other program were on unemployment so we were not allowed to ask them to do it. But we shared the distance learning content with all of our families, regardless of which program they’re in and the families really appreciated it.
Have there been any resources that have been helpful for you as you think about engaging with families online?
I’m really hesitant about online presentations- teachers is one thing, but putting children online I feel uncomfortable about. So we’ve probably drug our feet more. I believe young families really enjoy connecting online. But I have to say: I think they enjoy it up until they don’t. And when they don’t, it goes very badly- which is one of the reasons we’re taking a tip toe into that arena.
It’s just this virtual world of everyone being connected- I don’t think we know enough about it yet to know if it’s okay for children or not. The teachers would be vulnerable too. I feel like we’re pushing against a tide in that area. It’s just been the way of early childhood, to push for what’s developmentally appropriate for preschoolers. It’s hard to fight against it all the time. For example, life would be a lot easier if we did a preschool graduation, but the children don’t understand it and it’s not developmentally appropriate, so we don’t do it. But explaining those kinds of things, especially in this virtual world, is more difficult. So anyway, that’s engagement in not a fun way. But again, we all got through the stay-at-home period and I try to show families and help them to understand what we do to celebrate the child without that special moment, in a different way.