‘Beyond School Time’ offers virtual lessons to students

Apr 17, 2020

While Wareham students are forced to learn at home during the coronavirus pandemic, they might not have access to all of the resources available to them in the classroom, so some teachers have been bringing the classroom to them with “Beyond School Time.” The series of instructional videos allows teachers to give step-by-step breakdowns on topics of their choosing, like art, cooking, and science.

Brittney St. Germaine gave a virtual engineering lesson in her video titled “How to Make a Catapult.”

Using eight popsicle sticks, four rubber bands, and a plastic spoon, St. Germaine demonstrates how to create a tiny catapult that can launch marshmallows. 

The video is just under four minutes long, and features a step by step process to complete St. Germaine’s engineering challenge for students. 

So far, Thomas Tricker has posted several video lessons to keep his art students engaged during the school shut down.

In “How to draw Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story,” Tricker gives a detailed virtual lesson on how to use markers to illustrate the animated movie character. 

At about twenty minutes in length, the video captures the finer points of each step in the teacher’s process, but it also allows for some adaptation. 

“Remember friends, when we make a mistake, we fix it,” Tricker said as he adjusted a line to make sure that Buzz Lightyear’s helmet was symmetrical. 

Other drawing instruction videos posted by Tricker include lessons on drawing Woody, and Jessie, also from the Toy Story movies.

For students with a taste for the culinary arts, “Cooking with Mrs. Wynne: Scones!” demonstrates a recipe for baking English style scones, using simple ingredients like butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and milk. 

The video features sped up footage of Wynne going through each step in her own kitchen, to guide students through the baking process to create the golden-brown scones in their own homes. 

In another cooking video, Wynne shows students how to make an omelette, and even includes some parsley that she grew in her own garden. Both of the cooking videos include written descriptions of the ingredients to help students keep track while they are still learning the basics. 

All of these instructional videos are free to watch. They can be found by going to www.warehamps.org, clicking on “Wareham on Demand” under the Quick Links section. Once on Wareham on Demand, select “Beyond School Time” to see the educational videos made by Wareham public school teachers.