Ms. Bess’s Reflection on the Horizons from Home Summer 2020 Experience
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I have worked with Horizons at Carolina Day since its inception three years ago. It is without a doubt the happiest, busiest, hardest, most fulfilling six weeks of my year. But six weeks of “virtual” happiness? When it became clear that we needed to be 100% remote for Summer 2020 to keep our community safe, my feelings of anger, sadness, and loss were huge. I kept thinking about how the cornerstone of our community and the program is CONNECTEDNESS. I could not imagine creating that while we were apart. I let my feelings wash through me. I acknowledged my deep disappointment. Then I got busy. I gathered my teaching team and we started to build what truly became six weeks of virtual happiness, AKA #Horizonsathome2020.
We were able to split up the students by age, grade, and ability and craft a schedule where each small group of three or four met daily for an hour of personalized instruction. We were also able to have a “field trip Wednesday” session where we worked with science kits (provided to EACH CHILD by a generous donor), created art, and took virtual field trips. Finally, we provided two opportunities for community nights each week where we would read stories, have dance parties, do Zumba, or play games together.
We all agreed that connection and emotional wellbeing needed to be the cornerstone of our time together, so we designed our curriculum around these themes. Each student worked to learn about and share their own unique gifts and expand their “feelings vocabulary” through working with the mood meter (a tool developed by Yale’s RULER program). Our song for the summer was “What I am” by will.i.am, and each day we wove in mood meter check-ins, dancing, morning meetings, games, scavenger hunts, and lots of reading and math.
The small groups made it possible to check in, connect, track progress, and create opportunities for each child’s voice to be heard. I was amazed at how high program attendance was, and the support that we were seeing from home was both rewarding and validating. We had parents, grandparents, guardians and older siblings logging in next to their students, and it was an unexpected gift of #Horizonsathome2020 that I got to strengthen those connections and spend a little bit of time in my student’s homes.
I measure the success of this summer by what my students wanted to share with the larger Horizons community at our closing celebration. They brought up everything from the academic to the artistic opportunities to our connection. The following quotes by the students say it much better than I can, but for me, the bottom line is that these bright spirits made the time of COVID-19 a lot more bearable. I am not sure what I would have done without the connection, love, and learning that we did together this summer. My learning and my truth is that my gratitude for each Horizons community member is bigger and stronger than any virus, and it transcends any barrier in our way to being together.
Student Quotes
Serenity: I liked when we made our masks with Mr. Andrew. I also liked when we made our claw and learned about Caid’s Arcade.
Naomi: I liked doing multiplication and reading stories. I just liked everything!
Ma’Raya: I liked working with three digits in math. I liked growing salt crystals and the claw arcade!
Kaeshawn: I enjoyed making the claw. I also liked drawing and making my pom pom. I also liked reading.
Pedro: I enjoyed doing art projects and working and learning new things. I learned multiplication!
Hope: I enjoyed learning and Ms. Bryan. I learned and read about Independence Day!
Daniyah: I enjoyed coloring and drawing.