Bring
a Parent to School Day Carl
Sannito
One way to
help foster trust and communication with parents is to invite them
into your classroom. Oh sure, my parents were told at the beginning
of the year that they were always welcome in the classroom any time
they wanted to stop in, but very few parents ever took me up on
that.
Of course,
you may not want to have that kind of an open-door policy because
you may get some parents who can drop in at very inopportune moments.
That's a personal decision that you have to make by weighing the
pros and cons. Besides that, your administration may have rules
and regulations regarding when parents and guardians are allowed
to drop in on a classroom, even just for observation.
However, I
haven't had any problems in that regard. I have had just the opposite
problem. It's extremely hard for me to get parents to come by. So,
what I have done on occasion is to invite parents to come by as
part of our culminating events for various projects.
One project
in particular was an author's party for a class book we wrote and
published. (You can take a look at the book and pictures from the
party at http://suder.cps.k12.il.us/fourth_graders_make_a_book.htm.)
Every child got a moment in the sun to share his or her particular
writing in front of the class, as well as their family. It was also
a wonderful opportunity for the children to celebrate all the work
we had done over the past month on our book. The parents had a reason
to stop by and the children were my partners in trying to get parents
up to the classroom.
One of the
parents who showed up has never forgotten me and always stops by
my room to say hi, even though a few years have passed since this
party. I think that's a wonderful thing.
Do you have
a comment or suggestion? You can e-mail Carl at carlsannito at yahoo dot com. |