Hunt helps keep students connected

FORT RECOVERY — For the youngest elementary school students, class work hasn’t shifted online.

But that doesn’t mean they and their teachers aren’t making use of technology.

That’s because as much as continued learning is important, so is connection.

Fort Recovery Elementary School first grade teacher Jamie Albers is holding conferences on the mobile meeting app Zoom with her students once a week.

“I know the first one that I did, it was very, very surreal,” said Albers, who has been away from her students since the end of the school day March 16. “I actually got a little choked up, just (from) not seeing them. Some of them acted a little bashful and shy …

“(It’s) just to see their faces, and I think they want to see mine, just to stay connected.”

While older students in Fort Recovery have seen their learning shift to online platforms like Google Classroom, younger students have followed a different system. They were sent home with packets of paper/pencil work to be completed during emergency remote learning. Students dropped off their first three weeks of work April 3 and 4, and picked up another packet.

While presenting her students with new learning materials, Albers also wanted to find a different way to connect with them online. She latched on to an idea shared by fellow Fort Recovery teacher Lori Acheson.

So when she met with her students last week, Albers held a virtual scavenger hunt.

With all of her students together via Zoom, she announced an item. Each student had to run to find the item — she made them promise to put it back exactly where they found it — and return to their computer screen. The first student back was the winner of the round.

The game continued with each student selecting an item — a fork, a piece of fruit, a remote control — for their classmates to hunt down.

“I enjoyed doing it with my classmates,” said Emma Patch, 7. “I really like doing the Zoom meetings because I get to see my friends which I haven’t been able to see lately. I miss Mrs. Albers.”

Patch and her first grade classmates had been hopeful they might still get to be at school with their teacher this year. While Indiana announced on April 2 that schools would be closed for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, Ohio had not made that move until Gov. Mike DeWine’s announcement Monday afternoon.

When she eventually gets to return, it’s the simple in-person presence of her students that Albers is looking forward to most.

“Just to see the students,” she said. “Just to hear them in the hallways at school. Just to all be together again. A normal routine.”