KSA #12 Teachers understand the importance of engaging parents purposefully and meaningfully. They know how to develop and implement strategies that create and enhance partnerships.
I believe that creating meaningful relationships and an open line of communication with parents is crucial to a students' success. I personally think that there is a strong correlation between the number of people supporting an individual and their success. I think that if the parents and the teacher are on the same page, the learning that can occur is extraordinary, and can be taken far beyond the classroom.
Letters Home
Below is the letter that I sent home with my students on the first day of my PS III internship. As I mentioned, I think that it is extremely important to have an open line of communication with parents so it was imperative that I sent a letter home introducing myself, and encouraging parents to stop in and introduce themselves.
As I stated earlier, I believe that the more people that support a child in their learning, the more a child will get out of any given topic. Below is a note that I sent home with my PS III class requesting recycled materials to use for boat construction. The note also encourages parents to have a conversation with their child about what they are learning and how they can apply it to this project.
Curriculum Newsletter
In my time at my PS III internship school I was able to participate in a unique communication with parents. I communicated with parents through a monthly curriculum newsletter which can be seen below. Each class in the school sent a curriculum newsletter home to parents. In this newsletter that my mentor teacher and I created we communicated to parents about the learner objectives and activities that students participated in throughout that month. Parents are informed of the Essential questions and Enduring understandings that are being covered so that they are aware of exactly what we are doing in class. This helped to open the conversation between parents and students at home to help extend the learning from classroom to living room. We also included pictures to depict some of our activities, and to get the students excited to explain and share the newsletter with parents. The newsletter is to ensure that parents are informed about what is happening in the classroom. This way, if they have any general concerns or concerns about their students' progress, they could approach us with specific questions.