Virtual learning has been tough on both teachers and students. It has meant time away from in person teaching, time away from friends, and lost opportunities to come together as a school community for special events such as assemblies. So one might think to themselves “a virtual assembly, no way. Too many kids and too many possible things that could go wrong.” To be honest I had my own reservations about leading a virtual assembly, but gave it a shot and ended up successfully co-leading, with my partner Coach Davin, our first ever virtual assemblies last week at Benito Juarez Elementary and RCA Middle School in Richmond, CA.
In our first 45 min assembly for grades k-2, I was excited to see so many little ones drop into mindful sits with eyes closed and dance on their screens to our Mindful Village songs. The kiddos also really enjoyed seeing their favorite Brain House friends Focus Freddy and Excited Esperanza come to visit! For our second assembly (grades 3-5) it was awesome to see so many kids participating verbally and in the chat box when asked “what is easy and hard for you to focus on?” and when asked to share what they noticed in the lyrics of our mindful hip hop song S.I.T. after my live performance. Needless to say, they were very excited about the music! In our final assembly, I was very impressed with the middle schoolers ability to stay engaged and be respectful when asked to drop quietly into their mindful sits or respond to questions on chat. They also seemed to really enjoy our live skit about responding instead of reacting when having strong feelings about having to learn virtually.
Overall I would say our first virtual assemblies were a great success! In fact, things went better than I could have imagined as we ended up having a ton of fun connecting with the youth through humor, skits, music, and of course mindfulness. I can’t wait til we get to do it again!