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Hello! I am a student at Wright state and I was wondering if anyone had fun ways to get parents involved besides just having a letter be sent home at the end of the week. How can I make them feel like they are apart of the classroom?
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Hi! So one thing that I love to do is write letters to the parents throughout the year. I send letters home in the beginning, middle, and end of the year. I write about how their students are doing, how they are behaving, and how they are helping me grow as an educator. I am also looking into more ways of getting parents involved!
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Hi!! One thing I got to watch occur in a classroom setting was a 'Friday Folder' that went home to parents each week. This folder was the parent's responsibility and it was a constant way for parents to get ahold of the teacher. The teacher sent home positive notes and the student's work from the week. She made it a fact to write as many handwritten notes as possible and created an enjoyable line of interaction with parents. Another thing I have noticed to be effective is family projects. A couple of examples are 100's day bringing in 100 of one item (count them with family), and decorating a turkey in disguise so it doesn't get eaten for thanksgiving.
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Hi there! I really liked the question you asked on how to get parents involved, I just recently have graduated and was wondering the same thing when I started teaching in August! So far, the best method for parent involvement is having a class dojo. I recently have fallen in love with it, not because of the cute monsters but because I can add parent information with the student's profile. I saw it come to life when my old mentor teacher used it in her classroom. She used to give 3 points every day to each of her students: 1 for being on time, 1 for participation, and 1 for completing the warm-up. It sounded crazy at first but it gave the parents a notification if they only earned 2 points or even just 1. I am thinking about tweaking her idea a little because the 3 points seems a little overwhelming but just an idea!
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Hi Andrea,
A way to make the parent feel like they are a part of the classroom is Class Dojo. Class Dojo is an app that parents can download on their phones to see how their children are doing. In Class Dojo, students gain points in class and the parents can see it. The teacher can send announcements, private messages, post pictures of what is going on in the class. The app also helps the teacher out. It can help teachers assign groups and give directions. The student's work can also be displayed on the app. The students can have a portfolio that their parents can see.
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I would suggest inviting the parents in one at a time for a day to learn all about them. On this day you can introduce yourself, talk about their child's weaknesses and strengths, have them discuss their profession with all other students, share more about the classroom setup, and environment, and talk about ways to stay connected throughout the school year.
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Love these ideas! This sounds like more than just an open house or parent-teacher conference and I think that's a great solution. This way it's more of an intentional experience including the parents and they feel like they are a part of the classroom.
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Hi Andrea,
At my placement, we send out monthly newsletters, and we also have a Remind system that we use daily to remind parents and students about upcoming assignments and other things. What I like to do as a student teacher is send little post cards if I want to tell the parent something that their student did that I was proud of. Recently, I did a secret student strategy for classroom management and I sent home letters detailing how thy have represented our classroom well as a good student.
I hope this helps!
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Hi Andrea!
My classroom uses the Bloomz app as our form of posting information for parents and communicating with parents, and throughout the week, if I observe something awesome that a student did that really represents what type of student they are, I shoot the parents of that student a message and let them know what an awesome job their student is doing, and how proud I am of them. This has been very successful, and the parents love hearing that their child is doing well. It is also nice for me as the student teacher to have some form of contact with parents, since usually the messages with concerns or anything else go only to my CT.
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