Last night I spent the evening in my son’s preschool reading books with him and his friends for literacy night. This was the eighth time this school year that either my wife and/or I have been in my son’s school interacting with teachers, students, parents and the principal. Four of these times were for “parents in the classroom”, where parents spend the day with their kids in class.
To me this is pretty amazing as I reflect on my own school. Over the course of a school year I am required to hold two parent teacher conferences, one open house, and one parent orientation. That is four times a year where parents have an opportunity to be at school. There is no occasions where parents are in our classrooms participating in learning activities at the level I have been involved in with my son’s preschool.
Last year I did a read aloud activity with my class and invited parents to join us. It was a great experience as parents got to interact with their child, with me, and with other parents. I am planning on doing this again in the spring as it was a great way to bring the parents into my classroom.
As a parent, I love being in my son’s school and being with him and his classmates. I know as a teacher I need to provide more opportunities for parents to be involved in my own classroom. Looking at the activities in my classroom, I need to find a way to bring parents in more often to be involved in their children’s learning.
I would love to hear what other schools and classes are doing to bring parents in on a more regular basis. Parents a key part to the success of a student and we can always be doing more to bring them in.
What are you doing to bring parents in?
I teach 3rd grade and struggle with ideas to get parents in my classroom. For two years I have implemented a "Mystery Reader". The kids love it and so do the parents. I make a schedule for a parent to come in once a week… but which parent is a mystery to the students. The kids are all anticipating someone, but never know who it will be.
Parents love it and consider it a highlight of their year.
This might come in a bit late but here it is…
I organise Book Club meetings. My students are divided into small groups and I assign one parent volunteer per group so they can participate and enrich the discussion. Each parent receives a copy of the book being read. Meetings are being held once a week. Novels selected complement my social studies unit. In the fall we discussed World War II and we've now moved onto Black History.
I started this a few years ago and it works really well.