Staying Connected over School Breaks

Hey friends, if you're anything like me, you LOVE your breaks away from work, but you continue to do what you do only at home (in your pajamas) because teaching/education is just in your blood.  You continue your Twitter chats, you continue to comb Instagram for the latest crafty ideas, and you still check that Target dollar spot weekly just so you don't miss anything else.  The truth is - you aren't alone.  Not only do all teachers find it hard to let that teaching gene go during the holidays, the students and families miss the regular day too.  

So I thought... 

How could I keep our school community connected over the holiday break and encourage students and families to read daily?  

From there I created the:

I modeled the program after the infamous Hurricane Harvey Book Club that was a hit sensation during the two-week period where Hurricane Harvey hit our area and closed our schools for two weeks.  I wanted something easy to do (because I knew if it was hard, I'd never see it through) and I wanted to reach the maximum number of families (students).  

Without further ado, here are the steps I took to create an easy 2-week read-aloud series featuring our teachers reading to students, posted on our social media outlet(s).

Step 1: Where Are the Parents?

I work in an elementary school, so parents are who we reach.  For middle and high schools, I'd recommend reflecting on where you'll reach students, since their technology access is a bit more sufficient.  We know most of our parents are on our Facebook page.  Therefore, we chose to post there.  We advertised a bit on our Twitter page, but I found this was harder to double post at this time.  (In 2018, I'm hoping to learn more about posting to multiple outlets with one click.)  Teachers may choose to connect with their students on Instagram (stories), Seesaw, Flipgrid, etc. but this year I wanted to build upon the work we've been doing on Facebook.

Step 2: Staff Sign Ups

Goal 1: My main goal was to include staff from every facet of the building - from the physical ed teachers, to the choir director, the paraprofessionals, administration, and even some district administrators.  My plan included tweeting out to the district and tagging members from the district and board to read to our students as well.  It really was as simple as reading a book and having someone else hold your cell phone.  I wanted to include as many teachers and staff members as I could so that students and parents could see how much they mean to us.

Goal 2: I wanted to showcase the different languages of our school community.  When I advertised the program I had two columns set up - one for English and one for a different language.  As many of our population speaks Spanish, especially many parents who attend our event, and participate on Facebook, I wanted to be as inclusive as possible.  

So I created a simple Google doc to organize our daily read-alouds and had the principal send to our entire school email group.  You can see my sample here: Sample!

Step 3: Recording Videos

Many of the teachers at our school videotaped themselves reading in front of their Promethean board with the live fire scene.  This was a really neat addition!  I used SnapChat to record my principal reading Twas the Night Before Christmas with reindeer ears, and I used my iPhone/iMove app to record my own personal video.  There's a multitude of ways to do it!  My favorite is definitely the first grade team who videoed each other on their cell phones so that they could show the reader and the pages.  When I self recorded the pages weren't as clear.  

  

Ms. Garza and Mrs. Ybarra were a huge reason why this program worked!  They got their entire team to read!  
Check them out on Twitter @msgarza1st and @MrsYbarra1st

Hint: I recorded my video during the break but I definitely recommend prerecording them during school hours and having all staff members just texting them to you.  Having an iPhone, I did a lot of Air Dropping with the teachers who had Apple.  That was nice!  Having the videos on your cell phone makes it much easier to upload to a Facebook post.

Step 4: Posting the Videos

What I learned: 

• Set an alarm on your cell phone to remind you!  You may have teachers post their own videos, but a friendly text that morning (I did at 12:00PM) will make sure they have enough time to get it done if they're running behind.  
• Make sure all staff members have your cell phone number in case things aren't loading properly or they are having trouble.
• Again, I found it easier just to have all the videos on my phone and to share on my own since I'm an administrator for our school Facebook page.  If you're going to operate from a Facebook Business page, ask for admin rights from your school.  They can always take you off after the program.  
• Caution: This does take a daily responsibility during a break.  However, I found it to be very minimal and the parent feedback, daily, was really exciting to see!

Next Time/Next Year: Rather than have teachers and staff members read their books only, I'd like to encourage our students to read just as often and post their videos.  I might even have some of our student council members or student leaders record themselves before the break.   

I'm also hoping to do this program over Spring Break and even during the SUMMER!  What a feat that might be (probably just a once-a-week posting).  

I'd also like to post a link to some related activities - maybe from Pinterest - that parents and families could do after listening to the stories.  Perhaps the teachers could add these to their videos if it's their second time to participate.

The bottom line is: Our students were exposed to their favorite teachers reading...just a few minutes out of the day but my hope is that some of our students saw a friendly face and felt encouraged to read on their own.  Perhaps a parent or two saw the post and read to their child that day, or even that night as the child(ren) went to bed.  

We never know how far our impact is on social media.  However, I know that a teacher reading his/her favorite book far outweighs many of the other things posted on the internet over our two-week break.  I hope our parents and community feel how much we value them and how much we value literacy.  

How do you see this working on your campus?  How can you make it better?  I'd love your feedback in the comments below!