Blogs Are Different!!

Blogs Are Typically Read From the Bottom Up!! Start With Older Posts Link And Work Your Way Up!!

A Few Words On Blogs

Blogs can be very useful to you and have a number of elements you should be familiar with. Here are a few:

-Blogs have dated material, therefore you and your children are able to go back through postings in the blog that are archived chronologically and find previously posted information.

-Blogs are searchable. You can search for key ideas in a blog. Each blog makes it possible to assign a category to help find general information easily. For example, if you click on newsletter, it will bring up all posts commonly tagged with that word.

-Blogs contain pages. Pages are accessible to you through user created links. This is a good place to maintain newsletters and daily schedules. As a result, you have access to them at any time!

Where the web will be taking us in education in the future

Take a listen to this podcast-a technology your children will be sure to be utilizing in their education.

http://dschmidt.podomatic.com/

What Have You Learned?

See how much you have learned by taking this quiz:

http://www.classmarker.com/quizzes/make_quiz?quiz=7b12b501adc5d933634204ec55e61b31

Resources for Parents

There are a variety of resources available to you in your child's school district. Below are some examples of individuals commonly found in most districts:

-teachers

-teacher aides

-principal

-specials teachers(art, music, gym etc.)

-parent coordinator

-nurse

-social worker

-psychologist

All of these individuals are available to you and are concerned about your child's success!

What can you do to contribute?

One of the easiest ways to contribute is to:

Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer

-this could be as easy as attending field trips, helping in the classroom, making playdough etc.

The more you are in the classroom, the better able you will be to support your child's education.

Why we blog as a communication tool and it's future in education

Please visit this site as it has some interesting info as to when blogging came about, its uses and potential uses in education:

http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/pdf/emerging.pdf

Lesson Planning

Teachers are given a curriculum to follow each year. In our case, that curriculum is broken up by months in which skills to be learned are outlined in the following areas:

-social skills
-math
-english language arts
-social studies
-science

Lesson plans are then developed to meet these skill and concept maps. Newsletters are a good place to know what your child is doing at that particular time so that you are able to supplement their learning. Homework is also a good indicator. Feel free to ask the teacher ways you could help at home, as well as at school, to better grasp what skills your child is in the process of mastering.

Typical Daily Schedule

8:40-9:00am children arrive
8:45-9:00am morning activity-this is a short activity in which
children are asked to demonstrate one of the monthly
skills
9:00-9:30am circle time-whole group discussion and activities
related to that day's lesson ex: calendar, leader of the
day, weather, planned lesson for today's skill(s)

9:30-10:00am breakfast-during this time social skills such as
manners are worked on

10:00-11:00am special(library, art etc) and center time
center time gives the children an opportunity to
put the skills that they have learned to practice

11:00-11:10am ready for buses-this is a time to work on fasteners
student independence

By having an idea of what your children are doing in a typical day, you are better able to understand the workings of the classroom and how their day is structured. In addition, many teachers have weekly newsletters. This is a good way to know exactly which skills are being taught and how you can supplement them at home

Let's Begin

Now that it has been explained to you why it is important to be involved, we will work on what it is that we do in school daily and how you could be involved.

Why is Parental Involvement So Important?

Why Is Parental Involvement Important?

In study after study, researchers discover how important it is for parents to be actively involved in their child's education. Here are some of the findings of major research into parental involvement:
When parents are involved in their children's education at home, they do better in school. And when parents are involved in school, children go farther in school — and the schools they go to are better.
The family makes critical contributions to student achievement from preschool through high school. A home environment that encourages learning is more important to student achievement than income, education level or cultural background.
Reading achievement is more dependent on learning activities in the home than is math or science. Reading aloud to children is the most important activity that parents can do to increase their child's chance of reading success. Talking to children about books and stories read to them also supports reading achievement.
When children and parents talk regularly about school, children perform better academically.
Three kinds of parental involvement at home are consistently associated with higher student achievement: actively organizing and monitoring a child's time, helping with homework and discussing school matters.
The earlier that parent involvement begins in a child's educational process, the more powerful the effects.
Positive results of parental involvement include improved student achievement, reduced absenteeism, improved behavior, and restored confidence among parents in their children's schooling.
How Can Parents Get Involved?
Involvement in your child's education can mean:
Reading to your child
Checking homework every night
Discussing your children's progress with teachers
Voting in school board elections
Helping your school to set challenging academic standards
Limiting TV viewing on school nights
Becoming an advocate for better education in your community and state.
Or, it can be as simple as asking your children, "How was school today?" But ask every day. That will send your children the clear message that their schoolwork is important to you and you expect them to learn.
Some parents and families are able to be involved in their child's education in many ways. Others may only have time for one or two activities. Whatever your level of involvement, do it consistently and stick with it because you will make an important difference in your child's life.
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1.A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement, National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education.What Research Says About Parent Involvement in Children's Education ( 252 KB, 4pp), Michigan Department of Education.Parent Involvement in Education, Kathleen Cotton and Karen Reed Wikelund, Northwest Regional Education Lab (NWRLB).

Reference:
(n.d.). Getting Involved In Your Child's Education. Retrieved February 23, 2008, from http://www.nea.org/parents/index.html.

The purpose of this blog is to form a collaborative communication system between the school and home environment. It is a central forum for both teacher and parents to collaborate regarding the education of their children. This form of e-learning will help to increase parent involvement in the classroom as well as being a great place to pose questions that will receive multiple feedback from people with the same interests in mind.

Topics to be addressed will include the following:
-blog as a communication tool
-curriculum
-parent/child at home activities
-volunteer opportunities (re: field trips, special events etc.)
-parent resources