PULASKI COUNTY, Ark. (KARK) — Snow days usually mean no school, but with virtual learning and regulations by the Arkansas Department of Education, the school day must go on.

To meet in the middle, the Pulaski County Special School District has pivoted two days of this week to what they’re calling “winter-based instruction.”

For kids, this translates to a snow day surprise. They get to take a break from the regular rigor and do “snow-based” learning activities instead. What looks like playing hooky is just another way to adapt to events out of our control.

Pulaski County Special Schools saying rules and regulations won’t allow them to call this week a wash, a direct result of COVID-19 and new technologies.

“But now, everybody’s at home virtual,” said Alesia Smith, Deputy Superintendent of PCSSD. “So now, we have opportunities for the kids to continue learning all the time.”

Kids get to choose snow activities that align with educational standards. There are science activities like making ice marbles with balloons.

Engineering and architecture outside included making igloos and snow beds. Inside, children made forts.

There’s physical education like snowboarding, sledding and snowball fights. Also, arts and crafts like making paper snowflakes, home economics lessons in baking with parents in the kitchen or making snow ice cream, and there’s mathematics lessons like children measuring the span of their snow angel wings.

“Our children and our staff have been through so much this year and I just think we have really tried to keep stepping up to the plate and it seems like every time we go to the plate, they moved it,” Smith said. Lessons like joy, resilience, and cherishing the people, and the moments, that make life worth living. “Because those memories, they’re priceless,” Smith said.

Kids in PCSSD will go back to regular virtual curriculum days Thursday and Friday.

Chenal Elementary

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