The Summer Sun and a Good Book

It’s here, the summer sun at the end of another very full school year of teaching and learning!  Now, as you push through the last stack of paperwork, take care of end of the year tasks and check items off your to do list, grab the list of books you been meaning to read when you have more time and sprint with your full book bag to the end of the 2016 – 2017 tunnel!

My reading diet has been pretty light the past two weeks.  The demands of family, work, concerts, graduations, and other priorities (training for races, binge watching Netflix) will take me away from my stack of reading materials for periods of time.  The past two summers, I have taken advantage of the slower pace and the break from full time work to catch up on my reading, participate in book studies, read great books recommended by Pernille Ripp and Donalyn Miller, and set my own book a day reading goals.

Donalyn Miller @donalynbooks started the #bookadaychallenge in 2009 because she realized that she and her family read less during the last six weeks of the school year than any other time. Announcing the first annual Book-a-Day Challenge was a public declaration of Donalyn’s commitment to read one a book a day for every day of summer break. She wanted to kick start her reading life and push myself to read more than I ever had.

The Book-a-Day challeng has grown and changed over the years.   Particpants began using the hashtag #bookaday to connect and share books on Twitter. The Nerdy Book Club community grew from the conversations #bookaday participants were having online every day. The #bookaday has grown into a community that shares books and celebrates reading all year.

The #bookaday guidelines are simple:

You set your own start date and end date.

Read one book per day for each day of summer vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books in one day and none the next two, it still counts.

Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, audio books, graphic novels, poetry anthologies, or fiction—children’s, youth, or adult titles.

Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads or Twitter (#bookaday), a blog, or Facebook page.

You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

If you want to join a book club, consider joining Penny Kittle’s @pennykittle: The Book Love Foundation SummerBook Club '17: Enjoy a summer of Book Love. Also, keep an eye out for possible book studies with your colleagues!

Maybe, take time to volunteer and read to children or bring your own child to the GFPS Little Red Reading Bus @GFRedReadingBus this summer!  Check out their twitter page for more information and schedule. 

Need book ideas?

Check out the Nerdy Book Club 

Pernille Ripp @pernilleripp has great book suggestions.  You can follow her blog, click here for her lastest post. I really enjoyed Pernille’s post on free verse texts, and have enjoyed many of the titles she recommends. 

Consider picking up a book everyday this summer. Read to your children, read for you students, join a book club or a book study, and read for yourself !  Finally, enjoy a wonderful summer!

Parent Communication

I have been disappointed at the volume of negative press teachers and schools have been getting this year.  And, most recently, our district has been reflected negatively in the media as well.  There seems to be a lot demanded of our teachers and schools from our community and parents to “be all we can” for kids.

Now, more than ever, it is vital we tell our story and share our successes.  Our parents need to know us as teachers and humans that care about their children.  We need to communicate that the whole child is important, not just the child’s ability to complete school work.  Finally, they need to know what we do on a daily basis for their children’s learning and emotional wellness.  We all know how students respond when they are asked what they did at school; and we all know that you did far more than “nothing”. 

How do we do that?

Provide a letter of introduction to your students and families.  This is simplest first step, but it is often overlooked. Before school starts, send a letter to your students families introducing yourself and welcoming them to your class.  Or, simply share a quick video introduction.  Share your teaching experience, your expectations of students and parents, and a little about your personal life too, (your family, hobbies, etc).

Attend Open Houses, Parent-Teacher Conferences, and events in building that support parent-teacher relationships.  Don’t underestimate the power of a telephone call or telephone conference, if a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible. Notes or a call home, make sure you sandwich the not so good news with something positive both before and after. And even better yet, is to get into the habit of sending positive notes home. If you are in the practice of communicating with parents through “just because” positive notes, then if you have to share the negative news the parents might be more receptive to hearing it.

Start a classroom newsletter.  Newsletters have always been a great form of communication and nothing has changed there. What may have changed is the avenue through which you share your newsletter. These are a great way to remind parents of upcoming events and include pictures of children at school.  They can be emailed, posted to the website, or shared to a social media site.

Class or School Websites are often the first places we head for information. Having basic information available online is a great way to communicate with parents while also marketing yourself and your school to prospective parents.

Try sending Thank You Notes to parents for the opportunity to learn and grow with their children. Even for those challenging students (and sometimes especially for those challenging students), a note of thanks goes a long way in establishing good rapport with parents and showing them how much you value their child.

Apps that push out messages to parents, such as Remind, are awesome tools as well.  These go directly to a mobile device, and keep your personal telephone number safely private.  I have had colleagues give out their personal telephone number to parents and students, and then later regret this decision as they were getting texted at all hours of the night for sometimes very inappropriate reasons.  Here is a great article listing some good app choices:  12 Apps for Smarter Teacher-Parent Communication.

Finally, my favorite mode of communication with parents is Social Media. While you may occasionally find a family without a computer or email address, this is definitely the exception rather than the norm. In this information age, you have to meet parents where they are. Take advantage of the technology and communicate with parents via Twitter, Facebook and blogs.  Students can help you manage classroom accounts and with guidance post items that tell your classroom story.

I’ll leave you with a thought:  Sharing our good news with the community is vital.  Doing all this may seem daunting!  Pick and choose what works for you and your classroom.  Opening lines of positive communication and sharing the great things happening in your classroom is the heart of effective parent communication.

It will ultimately make your job easier and parents will appreciate it too!