Meetings on Zoom with little learners are an exciting event for our students to look forward to, but we have to keep them fun to keep them wanting to come back! It is important to have a big list of activities ready to keep those kinders engaged. While routine is important and you can see here what my meeting structure looks like, it is also important to keep them coming back. I’ve included a few ideas to help you keep your virtual community energized and active.
Our meetings with younger children need to stay on the short side and have some activities built in to keep them engaged. In class we had built up 20-30 minute attention spans on one activity or lesson, but on our virtual site, you can probably only count on 5-10 minutes on a single activity. I have also set it up where my Tuesday – Thursday Meetings are filled with routines. We also decide together on Tuesday what kind of dress up or theme to have on Thursday. Friday Meetings are special activities that will take the entire time.
The Big List of Zoom Activities
Beginning – keeping routines
- Meet & Greets
- Sharing
- Calendar Time
- Sing Songs
- Have Show and Tell
Middle – learning activities & fun
- Read books
- Short review lesson
- Take Turns Games
- Guessing Games – Select a kid to think of a book or movie character & have kids ask questions to find out who it is
- Flashcard practice on letters, sight words, etc.
- Guess my number
- Guess What I’m Thinking – “I’m thinking of an animal that has stripes, I’m thinking of a place we go to visit animals” and kids say the answer or they could draw it.
- Pictionary
- Phonemic Awareness Game – Say two words (rhyme, have same syllable, have same beginning or ending sound) with one that doesn’t belong and kids say the word that doesn’t fit
- Fix the Title – Name a popular book title or line of a nursery rhyme they know & change one word – The Three Little Horses, Jack and Lauren went up the hill.. The Itsy bitsy monkey…
Ending – more active or whenever you’re losing them!
- Play Simon Says –
- Scavenger Hunts – name something they have to go find and bring it back to show (favorite snack, favorite book, a toy, a family member, a pet, something yellow, something from outside, something that starts with a B)
- Treasure Hunt – nearly like scavenger hunt, just change up the name for interest (find something beautiful, something old, something blue)
- Play I Spy – I give the clues & kids get to say the classmate I’m talking about
- Play Would You Rather
- Exercises
- Magic Wand – Tell kids that you will want them to “go to sleep and you will say these magic words:
Sleeping, sleeping,
The children were sleeping.
And when they woke up they were…
Name an animal, kind of weather, object and they will all act like what ever you named
- Zoom Band – Kids can get out a pot or pan and bang to your rhythm with wooden spoons. They can copy the rhythms or practice patterns – AB, ABB, AAB (A is hitting pan, B is hitting spoons together)
- Freeze – Play music until you stop it and say Freeze – have them Freeze in silly poses or like animals, letters or shapes.
- Freeze Tag – Tell students you will turn around and when you turn back around they must freeze like a statue
- Make Animal Sounds – be sure to unmute & let this one be wild & silly
Like I said, on Fridays I devote the entire time to one activity. Directed drawing are so popular that we have done them every week. But you could have lunch or a snack together with some good conversation, a dance party or go on a virtual field trip where you share the screen and you all discuss it together. The connection to each other remains the focus and the WHY for your gathering. Enjoy it!
