It doesn’t feel like the school holidays are over, and now the new school year has started after two weeks of semester-end holidays. The longing of the children was felt when we studied through Video Calls with a duration of 30-45 minutes. The meeting schedule is held 3 times a day, namely the 1st meeting at 09.00, the second at 10.00 and the third at 11.00. In each meeting we could meet 8 devices consisting of 6 children and 2 teachers. Children can choose their schedule. The average child aged 5-6 can attend regularly.
In the first week we learned the sub-themes of greeting and friendship. The sequence of activities that we did was silence, opening, stories of activities at home, recalling the agreements that were trained, stories about greeting, remembering, steps for tomorrow, closing. At stopping, the child is asked to be silent for 2 minutes.
When talking about home activities, children take turns telling stories about their activities such as journaling, reading books and their activities with their families. Then the children show the results of their journals. To avoid boredom, the other friends were invited to mention the colors they saw in their friends’ journals. In addition to journals, older children talk about the letters or words they learned with their parents.
The question used to explore the meaning of greeting is What is greeting? Why do you need to say hello? How do you say hello when you meet your father, mother, friend or neighbour?
Steps for tomorrow, the children plan the activities they want to do that day and make journals that will be told the next day. The activity closed with a prayer led by one of the children.
Materials are distributed to parents the day before the children meet. For children who have problems on their cell phones, parents can support them by looking at the activities that have been shared and parents are free to consult with teachers about the obstacles they face through cell phones.
Learning through Video Calls is a Joglo trial in providing learning activities and establishing communication with children and their families in the first week of school. This has been done since the government implemented restrictions on community activities that coincided with the start of the new school year.
From Video Call activities, parents can see how the teacher delivers the material and they feel they have experience in assisting children in introducing material such as agreements, learning colours and letters.