For my first post, I want to share with you how I keep a constant communication with my families.
Within Room 5, my classroom number this year, communication has been critical. I am coming from a previous year families did not communicate well with me or through technology outlets provided. My first year teaching, my families would email and message through SeeSaw weekly. I was torn when I moved schools and district. I did not know if I wanted to use SeeSaw or how I planned on communicating with families. Going into this year, I knew that I loved SeeSaw, but needed to push it out as soon as possible to families to get more interaction from them. I was worried because we do not have one-to-one with technology so I did not how I was going to post to students journals and share students learning.
Luckily, this year my families are very invested in communication and wanting to know what is happening within the classroom. We have had an amazing opportunity to share and communicate. I also use email to communicate with my families as a way to help them stay in the loop with school items. I try to send a Friday message to my families so they know what we had learned in the past week and what would be coming up in the next week. I have found SeeSaw to be more benefical for one-on-one communication with families. One parent finds it easier to connect through SeeSaw because it is quick and through an app. It is also so much like texting that she is more comfortable to communicate through it.
I am still trying to get used to communicating with families through technology, but it is important to also develop that face-to-face communication with families. I have had more parents come into our school to talk with me and that has only made our relationship stronger and makes it easier to communicate when there is a problem. It is also important to find what works for your families and meeting their needs.
Technology can be a great way to keep in contact with families, but it should not be the only thing you use. Remember to develop those strong face-to-face relationships with families. This makes them feel valued and important. Call families more often. This has been my goal this year to not call for negative things, but to find a positive and make a call weekly. This is important because it strengthens the relationships with parents, but it also makes the kids feel important. Communication is key in the classroom and having a successful year. You have to make yourself committed to your kids and their families. Even when the families are upset, it is important that they hear from you in a variety of ways. The more you share, positives and negatives at time, the more open and successful relationships with families will be.
I am looking forward to sharing more with you on the positives and difficulties within teaching. Remember each day is a new day, support one another, and love those kiddos. They need you! You were chosen for this and you are doing amazing!
Growing Leaders and Learners in Kindergarten 
Hi Megann! I absolutely love your positivity and dedication to forming strong relationships with your students and their families. As we all know, relationships are a priority in teaching. It sounds like you are doing an amazing job keeping your classroom families up to date and involved in your classroom. How have you communicated with the family of your student who does not speak English? With such an increase in communication, how does your class culture this year compare to last year’s? I imagine you are seeing incredible results! I use Remind to keep in contact with my middle school families – we are so fortunate to have multiple technologies available to communicate with our classroom parents! I agree that face-to-face communication is also very important. Like you, I also love to make positive parent phone calls to inform parents of the great things that their children are doing! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I look forward to reading your future posts.
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Madeline, Thanks for sharing your questions and reading! Communication is key in education and can make or break a year! For my families who have limited english, I will share the Spanish version of SeeSaw sign-up page. From there they are able to set how they will communicate with me. This will allow them to write in Spanish and it will be viewed for me in English. I have also used google translate to speak with a student who had been displaced during hurricane Maria my first year of teaching. I would say what I needed to say in English, then Spanish, and then in English again. He was able to respond in English because I was able to give it to him in both languages. This truly helped. My classroom culture is so much nicer. Families are much more involved and I feel relaxed and confident in my abilities. I feel that if we feel off based off of reactions from families, it will play an impact in our teaching, communication and overall feeling of the classroom. Thank you again for reading and reaching out!
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Thank you for getting back to me! All of the technology that we have in this day and age is downright amazing. Translation services and educational texts published in multiple languages definitely help to make classroom materials accessible to all learners and their families. I’m happy to hear that you have noticed a positive change in your classroom culture! I think consistent communication helps convey to parents that we genuinely want to partner with them in their students’ education. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your school year!
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