Gifts From Students

One of my students is doing The 12 Days of Christmas Presents for me and I am LOVING it so far! This is what I have received:

Meet the Teacher Night

Last night, the evening before school, Moonlight hosted Meet the Teacher Night (or Sneak Peek, as it is also called). Students bring in their supplies and I am able to meet them and their parents. It's a wonderful time to have the first interaction with students and teachers.

This is what the students' desks looked like before they came last night:

On their desks: Important Points for Parents (includes specials schedule, homework requirements, contact information, brief content explanation), Bare Book note (students make a scrapbook of their writings over the school year, read about it here), Third Grade brochure, where to put supplies, and the students' first h/w assignment (All About Me bag)

 

Signups for the parents: conferences, parent goals for their child, party signups, contact information, volunteer information, and classroom donations

Cursive Handwriting Check

My 3rd graders "graduated" from their Cursive Handwriting book the first week in January. Since then, I have been writing (almost) everything in cursive. I have found that they are able to write in cursive, but it is hard for them to read the cursive. This is especially true since everyone has a bit different cursive style (it is handwriting, afterall!).

Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences are coming up and I want my students to have a product to show their parents about cursive. I found this idea for Kindergarteners to practice writing with using their classmates as "things" to write about. I decided to amp it up a bit and have my students use the same format, but to write the names in cursive. They LOVED it! It was fun for them to write their friends' names.

I am excited to have parents see what their child has learned in cursive. Here are a few shots of them working on their writing.:

 

 

 

 

Parent/Teacher Conferences

The parents are coming! The parents are coming!

Here are some resources to help you with Parent Teacher Conferences. They are available on my TpT site. There are four pages:

• Students Self-Reflection: students grade themselves on their performance thus far in the school year
• Homework for Parents: students just LOVE to take this home to give their parents some homework; this document asks parents questions about their child and the school year; it will help you as you prepare for individual parent conferences
• Student Reflection: a second student reflection, perhaps for older students or for spring conferences
• Students Grade the Teacher: students grade you, the teacher

Make Your Own QR!

I made a QR link for my Welcome to Third Grade brochure! These are sent to each of my students before school has started. Our school posts the class lists about a week before the first day of school. As soon as the lists are posted, teachers send our letters/postcards/brochures about themselves and the students' new grade level.

I thought I'd bump it up a notch and at a QR code!

I haven't ever made a QR before, so what does someone do when they need to know something?! I Googled it ;) I found a 4-Step How-To and followed it easily! I chose to use Microsoft Tag to make my QR code. It was so fast and easy to do. I linked it to my blog's parent page. I plan to include a QR code in my monthly newsletters giving teachers some resources to use at home as we cover a variety of subjects.

Have you used QR codes in your classroom or to provide information to parents? Any tips or tricks to pass along?