Bryce Latimer started first grade on Monday, and in an effort to make the start of his virtual school year feel normal, his parents put a lot of work into creating a mini-classroom in their own home, complete with posters that you’d expect to see in an elementary school classroom.
The first-grader took the atmosphere a step further by wearing his school uniform to the virtual class. “I want to wear my uniform because my class has to wear them,” he told local news outlet WKYC.
Bryce’s parents, Mike and Ashley Latimer, told WKYC that they “wanted [online learning] to feel as normal as possible,” which is why they built the home classroom. In a public Facebook post, Ashley wrote that the couple “both do try our best as parents! His education is a team effort!”
Posters around Bryce’s pop-up classroom include information about punctuation, homophones and sentence structure. His parents told WKYC that the posters were designed in photoshop.
On whiteboards, his parents wrote encouraging words for him to kick off the school year, including “1st Grade Ready” and “Happy 1st Day of First Grade.”
Newsweek reached out to Ashley Latimer via Facebook message but did not receive a response in time for publication.
With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many teachers and parents have shared their virtual and home classroom setups on Twitter, where students will get their education for the foreseeable future. Many teachers and faculty members showed virtual classrooms and offices, complete with Bitmoji avatars of the teachers.
On Sunday, model and author Chrissy Teigen shared that even though she and her husband John Legend would be bringing in a professional, they still went all out for a home classroom. Teigen wrote that she and her husband would cover their children’s cooking and music educations, respectively. She also offered to buy supplies for teachers that shared their wishlists with her.
“Today I cleared 50 entire lists and countless extra items were purchased from lovely people just passing through. Will do more this week and would love to focus on struggling districts and special needs,” Teigen wrote in a tweet.
