It's a Party!

Well, it was a party.

Let me back up. <insert cool rewind sound effects> This past summer as I was working the awesome Northview Summer Camp I began thinking about what changes I wanted to implement for the coming year. Let's be honest: Our brain never really leaves the "teacher" mode, even during the summer. The big idea I kept coming back to was parent involvement. I wanted to get parents more involved with our class.

In the past I had tried different things. One year we used a flip camera. Students got to take it home. They recorded their parent reading a book and then brought it back to school. We then played the video for the entire class and it was as though the parent was reading the story to us. The kids loved that!

While I thought about trying that again for 2014-2015 I wanted to go bigger. Go big or go home, right?  So I thought, "Why not have a parent night?" That then quickly got bigger. "Why not have a parent night each term?" Which then got even bigger. "Why not have food at the parent nights AND do parent volunteer months during the fall and spring?"

So that's what I decided. I would have a parent night each term as well as host parent volunteers at two different times during the year. That brings us to this past Wednesday......

I hosted our Parent Poetry Night. It was completely centered around my kids and poetry. The students had selected a poem from amongst their poetry that they do daily. We then practiced reading in front of an audience and while wearing a microphone. It was a good chance to practice introductions and speaking so others can understand.

The night of the event students had different centers they could choose from. We had poetry books from the library as well as their poetry binders from class. (We've blogged about them before. You can check out that post here.) I also made copies of different word family poems they could choose from. To finish it off I bought a ton of pizza! Let me tell you, it was all eaten!

Thanks Little Caesars ®

I gave families time to mingle and watch their students work. Families were free to jump from activity to activity. About every 10 minutes I called small groups of students up. Everyone watched and listened as they read their poem. Each student was met with a round of applause when they finished.

This was such a fun event.  I can't believe I haven't done this sooner. Now we are preparing for our Parent Volunteer Month. I can't wait for our parents to see what a typical day is like in our room.

Here's to connections, fun, and parent involvement!

P.S.
Parents: How do you get involved with your student's class?
Teachers: How are you getting parents in your room?