With this extraordinary year, I think we can all agree online teaching has been been a huge learning curve for everyone. But to make online teaching a little easier, we have shared our best 10 tips we have learnt along the way!
With so many early childhood teachers working remotely, we wanted to share what we learned from working online – running music sessions for preschoolers during our lockdown in NZ.
1. Repetition is important for children experiencing new situations. Even more so than usual. Stick to a few songs and props.
2. Run trial videos and watch back or share with each other!
3. You need to be more animated than usual on screens – subtlety is lost, so overdo it.
4. Short and sweet works well. Stick to 15 mins tops.
5. Keep it moving. Gaps and talking create space for children to disengage
6. Live singing with simple props that families have on hand works best.
7. Don’t be afraid to use gentle, quiet songs, nursery rhymes and fingers action songs.
8. Check if the volume works if you are using recorded music and have someone to help if you aren’t quick on the button!
9. Start and finish with welcoming and end songs so there’s some boundaries around the session. This also helps parents who want to turn screens off at the end.
10. Relax and allow for error, mistakes happen and technology lets us down – most families are just grateful for the interaction.
Comment down below any online teaching tips you have, we would love to hear from you!