Daily Check-in Ideas for Remote Learning

How to stay engaged with your students during remote learning

Remote, or distance learning has become our new normal here in Northern California.  As we begin to navigate what this may look like for us going forward, we thought we would share some tips and tricks we have learned in the past few weeks to keep our students engaged and connected to the class, even from home. Also, check out some of our daily check in slides in our Teachers Pay Teachers store. They are Google Slides and Peardeck ready for you!

Daily Questions/ Check Ins:

For the first three months of school, Denise and I ask a question to take roll. We pose one question to our students and they must answer when we call their names. We learn so much about our students, and the kids LOVE it. They beg for us to ask them a question for roll the whole year!

With that in mind, we knew we had to start engaging with our students daily when we went to remote/ distance learning. One thing that has been working really well for us is posting a daily question to our core classes through Google Classroom. We use the Question feature on Google Classroom and allow students to answer each other as well. Each day we keep track of who is engaging in our daily questions and who is not. This allows us to then figure out which of our students  within our classes may need extra support from us, our administrators, or our counselors. 

Flipgrid

Flipgrid is another fun way to interact with your students. We got the idea about using Flipgrid from our favorite mentor teach, Kelly Gallagher. While we do not use Flipgrid daily, we do like to do a few videos a week to interact with our students in a visual way. Our students can see our faces and watch videos of us, and we can watch videos of them as well. We like to use Flipgrid right now to give book talks and keep our students talking about their reading. Students can also share the books that they have been checking out while stuck at home. Other students can reply to their videos with videos of their own and it becomes a digital conversation that is interactive and meaningful for them. 

Flipgrid will also become a place were we start sharing our writing with our students. Students can attach files to flipgrid along with their videos so we are going to have them start uploading various pieces of writing that they are excited about and allowing their peers to read it and write their responses to the video.  

Questions to Ask your Students that Elicit fun responses:

Favorites:

Sport team?

Color?

Holiday/season?

Food?

Music/artist/band?

Animal?

Superhero?

City?

Movie/tv show?

YouTuber?

Pizza topping?

Thanksgiving food?

Flavor of popcorn?

Cartoon character?

Disney character?

Theme park ride?

Ice-cream flavor?

Either/ Or:

Beach or mountain?

Hawaii or Alaska?

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Dr. or Dentist?

Cat or dog?

Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon prime?

DC or Marvel?

City or Country?

Apple or Samsung?

IOS or Android?

Phone call or text?

Instagram or Tiktok?

Tiktok or Snapchat?

Cake or Pie?

Rich friend or loyal friend?

New clothes or new phone?

Pizza or hamburger?

Pizza or taco?

Online shopping or in-store shopping?

Tv or book?

Card game or board game?

Ice Cream or Snow cone?

Open ended questions:

Who is someone that always makes you smile?

If you could swap lives with anyone for the day, who would you chose and why?

If you could be a fictional character for the day, who would you be?

What is your dream car?

What time do you go to bed?

What is your pet peeve?

On a scale from 1-10, how funny are you?

What is your dream job?

Do you currently have any pets? What are their names?

Do you have siblings? What is your birth order? (Youngest, middle child, oldest?)

What makes you happy?

What do you look forward to when you wake up?

What would your superhero name be? What would you be able to do?

What makes you feel… (brave, loved, thankful etc)?

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

If you were going to build a fort in your house, what materials would you use?

What is your favorite meal to eat on special occasions?

If you could teach the class something, what would you teach us?

What is one rule you would throw out at home?

What is one rule that you would add at home?

What’s the craziest thing you have ever eaten?

What are three words that describe you best?

What is something you want, but never ask for?

What do you enjoy doing with your friends?Family? Classmates?

So teacher friends, are you also teaching remotely? What has worked for you when you are trying to stay connected with your students? If you have any strategies that have been working really well for you, we would love to hear from you. Also, let us know if you give these daily questions a try! Success stories make our day! We’d love to hear from you! Drop us a line on our Insta or Twitter. 

If you’re looking for even more ideas on ways in which to check in with your students on a daily basis during remote learning, check out our newest post on the topic. We have included more questions, and a ton of fun activities that will get even your most quiet students un-muting to share with the class.

Until next time teacher friends, 

Bottoms up!