Get Parents On Your Side

It truly is the little things that count when it comes to starting off a school year right. It has always been important to get parents on your side, but I think in the day and age we live in now, it is absolutely ESSENTIAL!! As a classroom teacher you need to make parents aware of what is going on in the classroom and most importantly WHY their children need to learn those specific things. You cannot differentiate if you have parents that don't understand why you are doing things a certain way, you need parents on your side to be able to do what is in the best interest of their kids. If you start your year off right, by sending home a letter to parents, it shows that you have taken that extra step to involve them in their child's education. Your letter needs to be just that, a letter, not a "well this is what is going on: A, B, C, D, E." Your letter should be informative of course, but the tone it conveys is CRUCIAL. Write the letter as if you are talking to the parents and please, please, please DO NOT lump all the students together as one, they are individuals, and make sure the parents know that. Show the parents that you will treat their children as individuals in the classroom and that you are willing to differentiate your instruction based on their needs. These are their children you are going to be taking care of each and every day and they want to be sure that you care about them and want them to succeed. Although a letter home to parents just seems like a small thing, the way you approach sending that letter home is going to make a huge impact on the way the parents look at you. I absolutely LOVE the idea of sending parents a letter home with a list of options they can choose from to help out in the classroom. A lot of parents are extremely busy and cannot come in and be parent helpers, I think it is a fantastic idea to give them other ways to help out, like: sending supplies for celebrations in the classroom, or even giving them an approximate date for field trips so they can sign up in advance. I also think that you should find a way of introducing yourself to your students BEFORE the school year starts, if at all possible. I love the idea of writing letters to each and every student and mailing them out at the beginning of August, include in the letter something for them to bring to class on the first day to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This is a great way to introduce yourself, to introduce some of the things you will be learning in the upcoming year, and also a way for you to get a little snippet of what the child is like.

Parent Letter 1
Parent Letter 2