Meet Flat Kaylee

How the Weekday School has continued to thrive on a new virtual platform.

Who’s five inches tall, one inch wide, and always down for an adventure? Meet “Flat Kaylee,” a picture cutout of one of our Weekday School teachers, Kaylee Pratt. Borrowing the idea from the children’s book Flat Stanley, Kaylee printed, addressed, and mailed a picture of herself to each of her students. This way, they can continue to interact with and bring her along on adventures, even when they can’t physically be together in the classroom!

The real Kaylee has not missed a beat in her transition to a virtual classroom. Though it has been a challenge, the switch to virtual school has brought with it a great deal of new creativity. “Connecting to my students is the top priority because at this age, play-based learning is our focus.”

Kaylee sends daily lesson plans to parents with instructional videos on how to conduct the day’s activities. During the first week of teaching her online classroom, she even dropped off activity bags to each of her students to ensure that they would have all the supplies needed to follow along with her activities. Whether it be astronaut training, show-and-tell, trivia games, or scavenger hunts, Kaylee has kept her students busy while having to shelter in place.

Weekday School teachers have been able to connect with their students on a weekly basis through Zoom calls, the WDS YouTube channel, and book apps like Epic!, where they can assign readings and educational videos while monitoring their students’ progress.

Students adventuring through the stay-at-home order with their “flat Kaylee.”

The Weekday School YouTube channel showcases the teachers’ creativity. They are always looking for new ways to engage the children, especially virtually during the shelter-in-place order.

Students working on their daily activities.

“One positive is definitely the level of growth and independence I’m seeing. I love getting feedback from the parents, coming together to see each other on Zoom, and watching how proud they are to show me their work they did all by themselves!,” Kaylee shares.

Like all of us, the Weekday School teachers and staff have had to adapt their approach, and changing up their platform to teaching preschoolers online has led to a creative, collaborative environment. “The staff bounced ideas off each other, communicated, and stayed in touch so that we were giving our families the best virtual school experience we could manage. Our team is awesome!”

View PDF

Want to print or download this story? Click the button for a PDF version.