Parent Involvement

Hi everyone! Happy (almost) fall! This was my first official week back to school with kids... but I spent it in bed. Yep. Sick the first week of school. Not fun.

Today my post is all about parents, specifically parents participating in their children's education. In our school mission statement, it states that parents are the primary educators. I think that's really important. More and more we are seeing the iPad or iPhone as primary educators. Ouch. There, I said it. I'm being harsh and definitely over exaggerating, but there is a little truth in it. However, there are still TONS of parents who want to work with their kids and are so eager for ideas of how to do this. So  for this post, I've pulled some of my favorite posts and pins that involve kids at home learning and exploring with parents. At the end of this post, there is a page filled with QR codes that lead to some of these great posts. The goal is to encourage those iPad parents to interact more with their kids and to give those eager parents the resources they want/need. :)

I love this post about fun science experiments to do at home! What a great way to bond with your kids while getting them thinking and exploring.

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/247979523209390604/

This is a great post filled with tons of fun, interactive suggestions for at-home reading.

Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/247979523207418397/ 

I love this post from my friend Valerie from All Students Can Shine about reading at home. This is a great resource for parents!

Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/247979523207354094/

My friend Lisa from Growing Firsties also has an wonderful resource for parents. This is such a helpful resource for parents. Often they are reading with their kids or listening to them read, but they aren't sure how to make the best of it.

Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/247979523209396193/

This post is full of activities to practice math skills. Math can be so fun and it starts with our attitudes toward math. Making math come alive can do wonders for kids! 

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/9218374213319517/

This idea is adorable for introducing subtraction to the younger kids:

Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/156359418290166401/

This post is packed with fun ideas, games, and tools to make math enjoyable for your kids. Love this post!

Pin: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358599189055217482/

Last year I posted ideas for practicing the alphabet at home. Here is a link to that post:

Earlier in the summer I also posted some ideas for practicing sight words in the summer. Since summer is pretty much ending, I thought I'd share this resource I made for the parents at my school a couple of years ago. (It's basically the same activities as the summer one.) One of the questions I get most from parents is how to help their kids master those sight words. I'm hoping this resource can help!

I printed these two pages front and back to send home:

along with this explanation page:

I posted the entire packet on our school website so parents could download as needed. 

Click here to get to that summer post. 

If you scroll down to the bottom, you will see this and can download it there for free.

I wanted to find a way to share these resources with parents. At the end of the last school year , I made some summer activities bookmarks for some of the parents at my school. These were full of hands-on, interactive ideas and activities for working/playing with your child during the summer. I found my favorite blog posts/Pinterest pins and put them together on a bookmark with qr codes. I decided to do the same for this! 

You can print it as a two-sided bookmark to laminate. 

Or just print on a regular page like this. 

It has some of the ideas from this post with a QR code to link parents to each post. Hopefully it will encourage them to work with their child in these fun, interactive ways! 

You can download these here.

If you are in the reading mood, here are some great articles with research written on the topic of parents involvement: 

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/Final_Parent_Involvement_Fact_Sheet_14732_7.pdf

http://www.ohea.org/parental-involvement

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Public-education/Parent-Involvement/Parent-Involvement.html