The coronavirus has hit US shores, and this has resulted in a heightened concern for people, particularly those in vulnerable categories, meeting in large groups. With quarantines imposed all over the country, and entire school districts on hiatus, there are many parents (and teachers!) staying home for days and even weeks. What will the kids do with their time? Here are some suggestions for how to make quarantine time productive:

Be sure to include some movement in the plan for the day. Put on some music and encourage the kids to dance. Do calisthenics in the living room or in the garage. If weather permits, jump rope or run around the back yard.  If you can safely do so, take a walk around the block.

Turn the back yard into a science project. Start a bird-watching project. Encourage the children to identify the birds they see, draw pictures of the birds they observe, record the birds’ behaviors that they have observed, and use the internet to look up more information about the birds. To incorporate more activity, the kids can do some gardening, such as trimming bushes, pulling weeds, or planting seeds, if you already have them on hand.

Incorporate music in your activities. Find a telephone show or a website that allows for a sing-along. Or you can organize an impromptu family chorus with you and your kids. If you have instruments in the house, you or your kids could arrange your own concert. You could even record the event and post it on social media for others to enjoy.

Read aloud to your kids. Even older kids enjoy a skilled reader sharing an age-appropriate book with them. Take turns, and have the kids read some of the book aloud to you. Or ask them to read to the dog. Struggling readers often find reading to their pets a low-risk activity.

Involve your kids when you prepare a meal. This is a good time to share your knowledge of healthy meal planning and food choices. Use an online calorie counter to rehab high calorie recipes into lower calorie choices (hint: I often do this by cutting down the use of starches such as pasta, potatoes, or rice, and adding additional fresh vegetables, such as leeks, cauliflower, or tomatoes). You can also incorporate math lessons in the meal prep. Ask them to cut a recipe in half, or double it. Convert standard measurements to the metric system.

Do some journal writing. This works best if you supply a topic for the kids to write about. Search the internet for suggestions for stimulating topics, or suggest an idea for them to use to create a poem or short story.

Incorporate an art project in your daily activities Try to get beyond the crayons and coloring books. Ask the kids to design greeting cards for relatives. Do some scrapbooking together as a family. Look at objects you might ordinarily throw away, such as bottle caps or empty toilet paper rolls, and find ways to use construction paper, ribbon, markers, and glue to create decorative items. Build objects with tooth picks.

If all else fails, you can ask them to help you do some house-cleaning. They can sanitize their toys with anti-bacterial wipes, organize their closets, or sort through canned goods in the pantry for expired products. Teens can help with dusting the mini-blinds or nic-nacs, or cleaning out the garage, if you can persuade them!

If you have other ideas, share them in the comments section. Let’s all get creative, and help each other keep the kids occupied. Happy quarantining!

March has been officially designated Women’s History Month! The celebration is an annual event which recognizes the many accomplishments of women in all fields of endeavor. To help you plan your lessons for your observance of Women’s History Month, you can download and share with your students these free colorful STEM Role Models posters. The posters come with information about inspirational women. The featured women serve as amazing role models in their fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The great news is you can now download the complete set in eight languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese Brazilian, French Canadian, Simplified Chinese, and English.

See the posters at this website: STEM Posters. Enjoy!

With today’s Super Tuesday primary voting taking place, teachers all over participating states are likely teaching their students about the importance of voting. To help these teachers launch conversations about voting, or to help them encourage students to participate in the voting process, here’s an informative six-minute You Tube video about young voters. It was created by PBS in 2018, but is still relevant today. Happy voting!

Retired teacher Terry Lee Marzell shares a valuable life lesson she learned from one of her students.

Most educators would agree that it is important to teach our students valuable life lessons in addition to the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic. But every once in awhile, we teachers learn meaningful life lessons from our students. Here’s one I learned.

In my student teaching year (many moons ago), I was approached one day by one of my seniors. He said he needed to leave school immediately because he had injured his ankle while riding his motorcycle earlier in the day. He claimed he needed to leave school to seek medical attention. I suspected the young man was (dare I say) pulling my leg. I asked him to pull up his pants leg and let me see the ankle. Now, I am not a medical professional, but I had a work history that included six years as an admissions counselor at the local hospital’s emergency room. I was pretty sure I could spot an injury where there was one. But when I looked at the boy’s ankle, I did not see any obvious signs of injury. No bruises. No swelling. No cuts. No burns. Nothing. I told the student complacently that I thought he could survive until the end of the class, and I directed him to take his seat.

I also decided that after school I would contact his parents and report the attempted subterfuge. By the end of the school day, I had perfected my game plan. I would call the parents, express concern about the health of the young man, and then relate how he had concocted a fake injury to get out of class.

So after school I dialed the student’s home phone number, and the boy’s mother answered. “Good afternoon. I’m your son’s English teacher,” I said. “Today in class he told me he had injured his ankle. I am calling to find out if he is OK,” I explained. “Just a minute,” she responded. Then I heard her call out to her son. I heard her ask him if he had hurt his ankle. And I heard him respond, although I could not clearly discern what he was saying. But I allowed myself to feel a little bit smug, secure in the belief that the boy had just been caught in a lie.

A moment later, the mother was back on the line. “My son told me what happened today,” she said. “He has a trick ankle, and sometimes it pops out of the socket. When this happens, it really is quite painful,” she continued. “But our next door neighbor is a doctor, and when this happens, my son simply goes to the neighbor’s medical office, and the doctor pops it back into place,” she went on. He’d gone to the medical office after school, she told me, and the issue had been resolved. “So, yes, thank you for asking, he is OK,” she concluded.

As you can imagine, the smug expression promptly fell right off my face. Then I stammered something about making sure that this information was recorded on his school health record so that his teachers would be aware. Had I known, I would have let him go, of course. I expressed relief that he was no longer in pain, and said I looked forward to seeing him in class the next day.

I allowed myself a small ovation that I had not openly accused the student of dishonesty, not to his face and not to his mother. But still I felt chastened. Appropriately so. I learned an important life lesson that day. I learned that I could not make assumptions about the conditions of my students. Simply put, the kids deserve the benefit of the doubt.