Family

[] Here is the Parkside monthly newsletter. Click on the link above. [] Above is the link to the Parkside school calendar. [] This year 5 of the 6 elementary schools have decided to join the piloting school by getting Renaissance Learning for their Accelerated Reading Program, above is the link to the welcome page.

=**Engaging Family Activities**=
 * Some great ways to help get parents involvement give them as much information as possible and keep them up dated to the best of my abilities.**
 * Read At Home or Book Club is a great way to get the parents involved in their students learning. The students have a library book or a book from the class and they must read 20 minutes at least 4 days of the week. This helps the students learn and the parents are being a part of it by either reading with their student or just listening to them. After the student reads the parent signs off that their child read.**


 * Every other week a newsletter will go home with the students as well as be email to their parent and mailed to the students. This way it will get to where it needs to be. Plus if it comes home in the mail the students will enjoy getting mail from their teacher too, with that I will try to write a brief note to each parent about their students and their achievements in class that week. Letting the parents know what is going on in the classroom is a big thing to me. I feel that even though they aren't there they still deserve to know what we have done and will be doing. Along with the newsletter I will attach a monthly calendar at the beginning of the month with all the tests and events that will be taking place. As well as informing them of test dates and school events I would have my own classroom events also.**
 * //Friday is team sport day wear your favorite sprots team clothing. Monday is red day don't forget.//**
 * Example like those. I love to make my teaching fun which I hope makes the learning fun as well. As I will have mentioned at the beginning of the school year and in every newsletter "my classroom door is always open, feel free to come in and help out or just come in and be a part of classroom family for the afternoon my door is always open to parents who want to take part in their students learning.**

=**Partnership Plan**= ** Family/School/Community Partnership Plan **

Courtney Smith

Miss Smith’s Kindergarten News NO SCHOOL MONDAY FEBUARY 21TH Presidents Day. February 14, 15th we had our valentines’ party. A special thanks to the parent volunteers who came in and helped out during our parties. The letter of the Week was O. Next week’s letter is H, brain storm over the weekend with your student for items and words to put on our H chart for Tuesday. Bring back any homework you may have as well as Read-At-Home books. We are ending another Read-At-Home session; the next prize is the annual school Carnival you don’t want to miss that. A letter will be going home with your student in the next week talking about a contest/donation we will be doing. Our class is responsible for making the Chocolate gift basket for the raffle drawing at the carnival and we will be collecting chocolate to put in our basket as a class. This week’s achievements: All students this week received a 90% or better on our math test! We had 5 students fill up their Read-At-Home sticker chart and read with the principal! ** Next week is Katie and Kyle’s All about Me Week! Bring in up to 8 photos and your completed form and we will share after lunch and put up your artifacts. ** //  Thank You and have a wonderful week,   // // ~Miss Smith  //



All parents all welcome in my classroom. At the beginning of the year when I meet with the student to pre assess them I will have a meeting with the parent(s) asking for their email and phone number and giving mine out as well. After I pre assess their child I will explain my open door policy and how I welcome volunteers in my class anytime. On the card with my phone number and email it will have my webpage as well as my wiki page. Both pages will have great resources for parents to interact with their students and engage in their learning other than with their school work. I will ask that there be a signature on homework and all Read-At-Home books sent home. A signature by a parent, sibling or other family member or adult is fine as long as someone in that child’s life was there to help them with the process. At the end of the week along with the newsletter I will try to send home a brief letter to each parent on each student. To me this shows that I really care, I am taking the time to do so. (A mock letter is at the end of the paper.) [] This site is a site I will refer to often, it has great ideas and it is from a credited school. This newsletter the site has put out is on reading. It doesn’t directly say this is what parents should do but it had great ideas for what could be done. As the teacher and educator this site has given me some tools to give to parents to help their child gain the skills they need to successfully read. ** Promoting Families   ** To help promote families and all types of families I will in have my own National Family week in my classroom. Taking information from both the American and UK traditions, in the US, National Family week is Nov. 21st – Nov. 27th. In the UK it is May 30th – June 5th. In my classroom I might touch on it during both those times. There is a great article I found that shares great ideas about children and how if they have a loving family the child will thrive much more in school than if they didn’t have a loving family. [] The next site I found was from the UK site for The National Family Week. It states who they are what they are about and the events of the year’s festivities. I feel my job as the teacher I bring in different literature on different families and share with the students that no matter what type of family you or a friend may have as long as it is a loving one it is a family none the less. Along with literature, in their homework I will have the students talk with their parent(s) and ask them about the families they had growing up; opening up the line of communication. During free time at the art table the students can draw pictures of their families. I will have photos of all types of families up around the classroom as well to show the students as another outlet than just talking about all types of families. I feel these tools will really help get the ideas across to the students and help break down those walls if they are there. ** Letter about child  ** Here is an idea of what a brief letter would like. I have a few ideas one would be this one where I write an actual letter or another would be I have a set template set up discussing the child’s behavior over the week and space for a sentence or two. Here is what a letter would look like. To the Parents of Courtney, This week Courtney was a cooperative learner. She achieved another sticker on her Read-At-Home chart and is 3 away from reading with the principal. She did need a couple reminders through out the day to do her work and not socialize but she was able to get back on track and complete the assignment. She was very excited about sharing today and was very articulate. Have a great weekend ~Miss Smith Something like that would be what I would try to send home to the parents. Just a brief little up date on how the week went and small achievements that are taking place. I feel the more communication that is taking place the better as well as letting the parent(s) know about the positive things that are taking place rather than the negative.