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Hi all! I am a preservice teacher, and I am wanting to learn some fun and creative ways to get parents involved in their children’s science education. I want to encourage them to promote science learning in their everyday activities. Any ideas for how to get them started? Thanks!
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When I first began teaching, I would ask a handful of parents to help me do some experiments in the classroom once a week. In order to know who to ask, you need to create some sort of parent survey that you can send home. Ask them what skills they have that they could share with the children. You can also ask children what types of jobs their parents have. Ask them if they would be able to come to school during the day for about an hour to assist with science.
Have task cards made up for each parent so they can refer back to it to know what you expect them to do. I always put an asterisk by the sentence-"Do not tell students the answer."
I ask parents to attend field trips and make sure they know they have a responsibility to keep track of their assigned group and keep them safe, andfollow the agenda.
Now, I host STEM nights and have parents assist with some of the experiments. They also fill out a survey at the end asking what they liked the most, what do we need to improve on, etc.
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Hi Kaylee--
Most parents want to be involved, but some may need some suggestions on what to do, especially if they are not sure of their own science background. You might find some ideas in this blog: Science 'home work' for Interested Students.
Mary B.
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Thank you Mary, the blog has good ideas.
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Thank you, I will definitely check it out!
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Kaylee!
I love that you want to include your parent's into your classroom. One of the things that I would suggest is to first figure out the best method of communication for your parents. Find out if they prefer online information or print information. Smore is a great way to make interactive newsletters that you can share with your parents and your students. You can include documents, videos, links and other pics into your newsletter. It is a very easy tool that would be a great way to pull parents into what you doing in the classroom.
NSTA also has a great resource page when you are trying to explain the NGSS to your parents. The tools on this page can be great pieces of information to include and allow a dialogue to begin in your classroom. Also, allowing your students to show evidence of their understanding of the NGSS may be a great way to make a connection to what you are doing in the classroom and the community. Parent's often loved to see evidence of their children being successful in the classroom.
These are just some tools that you can check out and see if they are a good fit for your classroom. I would start with of course finding out what is the best communication method for your classroom. I would love to hear back about what you ended up doing in your classroom!
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Hello Kaylee,
I will be starting my student teaching next fall, so I found your post very helpful. I agree with what Mary and Jessica said in their responses. I think it is a great idea to make resources available to parents that were not accessible to them. I also agree you should form a good relationship with the parents by communicating what your students are working on. Another way to encourage getting parents involved in science would be researching what science opportunities are available in the local community. Perhaps there is a science center or a wildlife refuge. Science is all around us, you could suggest activities they could do with their children. For example, every month you could think of a parent and student activity for them to work on. You could also invite parents in during class hours to help out during lessons if your school is okay with that. Making them feel welcomed and comfortable with asking questions about science would be great.
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