Standard Three ReflectionIn my time at this school I noticed a big presence of parents within the school community. I wanted to keep this engagement and involvement at a high level and my mentor asked me to take over the blog entries that were used as just one was to communicate to parents of children in our classroom. This blog was fortunately accessed through a blogger app, which I was familiar with. I updated this blog each week with current happenings in our classroom, events, dates and important information. I also included photos of learning that happened that week and my blog entry was titled ‘Mrs Nottles Notes’ aptly. My other forms of communication within the classroom to engage parents consisted of a parent info area, complete with the pick up lane list, pencils, a file that contained forms from the term, and a parent help roster for each day. We were very fortunate to have a parent 4 out of 5 days in our week. This assistance gave me flexibility to organise literacy rotations that were purposeful and engaging. In this area I also created a ‘parent pride’ brag bag. This was complete with post it notes and a pen, with the idea being for parents to write on the note something they felt proud of their child currently learning in our classroom. It may even be that they were happy, or made a new friend, or enjoyed their week. Each week I would receive at least 6 of these and pop them into the bag for a fresh week to begin. The parents commented they thought this was a fabulous idea and it was a very useful tool for me to use in gaining feedback from parents.

The school had a specific date organised in Term 3 for a whole school learning journey. My mentor asked me to be the organiser of this. I am very grateful for this experience; the open classroom style event was a big success with 18 out of 22 families coming into the classroom after school.I organised the following activities / stations to be used with their child across the classroom:

PPB Learning Journey

Welcome- our stations for this afternoon are as follows….

1. Take a ‘camera’ Ask your child to place this next to work or learning that they feel proud of. Take a photo so you have a record to keep at home!

2. View completed learning in numeracy and literacy/dictation books.

3. See if your child can show you their learning in numeracy with the THINK BOARD. Student must turn over a number, circle it, write it as a numeral, draw it and then build it (using counters/gems).

4. Sight word swat – sight words have been scattered over the mat, see if you can choose one and say it loud, and your child can swat it with the swatter!

5. Wish jar – with your child’s new writing skills, together write a wish/goal for the end of 2018 and place it in the jar.

6. “Thankyou for POPPING in” please take one cup of popcorn to share on your way out.

Thankyou for attending the learning journey today with your child. 😊