Cornwall teacher a recipient of UCDSB Trustee Innovation Award | The Kingston Whig Standard

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Last spring, she developed an at-home toolkit – a comprehensive list of functional activities to do at home using everyday objects that encompassed learning goals such as life skills, fine motor, language, math, communication, and gross motor skills. Lauzon shared the activities with her students and at a time of uncertainty, parents welcomed the experiences that helped to keep their children engaged and learning.

“(In the spring of 2020) the question was how to support high needs kids at home,” Lauzon explained in an interview this week. “They do a lot of hands-on learning in class.”

In the year of the pivot, Lauzon had to keep pivoting. With stores closed two springs ago, simple household items, ranging from laundry baskets to popsicle sticks, were put to use. But this year, when stores were open, that opened up a lot more possibilities.

With new opportunities to keep students engaged in learning. Lauzon began virtual life skills, the ‘take- and-make’ experience, where students picked up a weekly take-and-make kit to create at home during a virtual Microsoft Teams meeting.

She partnered with many community supporters to make it happen. The students completed activities such as s’mores on a stick, building a desk organizer and hanging planter (Home Depot), gardening (Marlin Orchards), popcorn balls (Happy Popcorn Co.), and ice cream sandwiches/pizza kits (Cowan’s Dairy).

“Parents played a huge role – it’s not an easy transition (to have kids learning from home),” Lauzon said. “And I think the support from the community needs to be recognized. We live in an amazing community. . . when I reached out to businesses, there was zero hesitation – they were all ready and willing to support us in any way they could.