Communicating with Parents: Create A Class Blog
Communication with home is essential, no matter what grade level you teach. With Back to School on the horizon, I’m sharing some simple ways you can connect with your students’ parents. Here’s the link to the first post if you missed it: Communicating with Parents.
Keep a class blog/website.
I just started my class blog last year, but I had numerous parents who checked it regularly and really depended on it to know what was going on at school. Mine is a WordPress blog. It’s free and it was simple to set up. Here’s what my class blog looks like:
I’m in the middle of cleaning it for the new year – but feel free to have a peek. It’s a work in progress at the moment, though.
For me, there are lots of benefits to keeping a class blog.
-I keep their homework posted, so when a student is absent, they know what they missed. Lots of other students (and parents) also depend on the homework feature to stay on top of things.
-Once the parents know about the blog, they can subscribe to follow it and will get email updates whenever I post something new.
-I can keep all fundraising and school event info on the site to inform parents.
-I can keep students informed of upcoming assignments, and parents informed of work that has gone home.
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Some other sites to look into for setting up your own class blog/website that I have found:
You may want to double-check with your school tech person before you register a blog. Some districts block certain sites and you wouldn’t want to go through the work of setting up a website or blog for nothing!
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All in all, once your site is up, even if you just use it for homework and important updates – I think it’s a great investment of your time because of the connection it creates between home and school.
Do you have a class website or blog? What site do you use?
Posted on August 8, 2012, in Back to School, General Teaching, Home and School Connections, Middle School and tagged back to school, class website, communication with home. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
My school signed everyone up for edline.net last year. I used mine to post homework daily (nearly every day, someone showed up with homework printed off because they forgot their homework:). And update parents on what was happening in class. I took some pictures of projects (but found it difficult to post due to privacy issues) and class activities. Parents liked that they didn’t need to rely on their child for information, they could say “I see you are working on solving two step equations in math now”. Communication is very important for happy parents and administrators:)
I find the homework part a double-edged sword. I’m trying to teach them independence and I want them to be successful. I want them to write their HW down, because it should be their responsibility -not mine. Yet, I post the HW each night online, so why would they need to write it down? This is the one thing I struggle with, in regards to the blog. I love the communication part of it, and the accountability me to them and hopefully, them back to me! There really should be no excuses for things not done, at this point!
Krystal