"I am so gald I came to this Open House..."

...was a comment we received from the mother of one of our SK students during our Open House on September 18th. We've made some changes this year and by the sounds of it, our families, even the ones that we've had a year to get to know, seem just as excited as we are.

This past summer I took my Reading Specialist course. A part of the course focused on parent involvment and engagement which, at first, I thought were the same idea. During my research, however, I leanred that they are two quite different things. I was encouraged to think about how do I involve parents and families in our classroom, in our school, in our learning and teaching? Likewise, I got to thinking about how I could better engage with families; how might  I offer them opportunities to "join in," to become informed and to get messy with us! At the end of the day, I realized that I could be doing a much better job of this (hence the creation of this BLOG!). One of my many goals for this year is to involve parents through this BLOG, through our slideshows and also to engage with them by inviting them into the class more frequently and communicating with them via videos and the web. But back to the Open House!

So, with a head full of new learning and fresh ideas, for the Open House, I decided to create two centres for students and parents to explore together-my way of involving and engaging parents. The first centre was a community building centre where families could build inukshuks together to represent their presence in our classroom. Earlier in the week the children had the opportunity to create their own inukshuks as a part of our rock exploration project. It was interesting to see how the families reacted to this artistic invitation. Like our children who explore our classroom learning centres, some parents jumped right in, some were slow to warm up and some just walked right by. Nevertheless, we found it to be a beautiful activity and were glad that we tried something new. We ended up with some beautiful inukshuks which are now on display in our classroom.

The second centre was a homework display which offered a parent letter communicating information regarding our new Daily 5 Home Reading Program. I was able to inform parents of this new homework routine which we feel is much more meaningful and easier to manage than what we've done in the past. We got many comments about our new program including, "This is so much better than last year" and "Thanks for adding a list of on-line reading sites and activities, [child's name] is going to love that." I think parents really appreciated the opportunity to have their questions about the homework answered via a face-to-face conversation. I also felt good about it and was glad to have been able to have a little chat. Again, a great way to really involve and inform parents in a much more personal way.

All in all it was a beutiful and busy evening. Thanks to all of the families who made it out and for your participation and support!