Speaker 1: Do you struggle sometimes with figuring out how to create a great parent-teacher relationship with your parents? If so, this is the video for you, so keep on watching. Hey there, and welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Anna DeGilio. I was a primary teacher for 23 years, and on this channel, I provide professional development videos for rigorous and streamlined small group instruction. I also talk about tips and techniques and strategies to bring in your classroom to help you improve your craft or just add some new things into your classroom every day. So these are the types of videos that interest you. Please click that subscribe button and that little bell next to it so that you're alerted every time a new video goes live. So today we're going to talk about parent-teacher relationships, and I'm going to give you three tips or three strategies that I used in my classroom to really create wonderful, wonderful parent relationships. I worked very, very hard on creating valuable parent relationships with my parents, and I did that in a variety of ways. One way that I did this, or one strategy that I used to really start the year off right or continue the year on the right foot, was sending video messages to parents. I mean, especially now with the situation that we're dealing with with COVID, these are a great way to kind of touch base with the parents or make them know that you're there for them and you're there for their children. So typically, this is pre-COVID, but typically at the beginning of the year before school started, I created a quick five to seven minute video introducing myself to the parents and the children and welcoming the children in, literally calling them by name. So I would have my class list up by my video, and I would say, well, hello to Brandon and Alicia and Elisa and Sam and Tyler and John. I would say hello to every single child so they heard their name. It was very personable, and the parents loved it. When I tell you I would get emails every single year, sometimes five, six, seven emails from parents saying, thank you so much for that video. It really helped my child not feel nervous or have any anxiety about the beginning of school. They loved it. And honestly, it started us off on the right foot in terms of a parent-teacher relationship. This was one of the things I did every single year. Not only that, but I did it multiple times a year. I always did it at the beginning of the year before school started so they knew what I looked like, what classroom I was in, what our room number was, and then I said hello to each child. I told them a little bit about me, where I lived, my family, that kind of stuff. I wanted to quickly show you a very quick clip of one of the videos that I sent home. This was years ago, so I look much younger. So this clip is a quick clip that I sent years ago to my parents. I wanted you to just see it super quick. So watch and see how I sent home these videos. Hi boys and girls. My name is Mrs. DeGilio and I'm your new second grade teacher. I'm so excited that you're going to be in my class this year. I'm sending you this video message. I'm actually sitting in my backyard right now. I live in Pleasantville, which is not that far away from Briarcliffs, only about five minutes away. So I live pretty close to where we go to school. So I wanted to send you this little video message so you know what I look like for the first day of school. And I wanted to say a big, big hello and welcome to Antonio and Maximus, Lucas, Christian, Isabel, Madeline, Chase, Carlo, Allison, Saranda, Lauren, Samantha K, Ryder, Hallie, Charlotte, Gavin, Matthew, Ariana, and Samantha W. Hi everybody. I'm so excited you're in my class. This is going to be a terrific, terrific year and I'm very excited about it. So you actually get to come to school before the first day of school. You will get to come in and see your classroom from 2.30 to 3 o'clock on either Tuesday or Wednesday and you get to set up your desk that day. So I want you to bring all of your supplies to school and have them labeled with your name and some of the supplies I'll collect. I'll collect your glue sticks and some of your extra pencils, but most of your supplies will go right in your desk and we'll get it all set up so on the first day, the official first day of school, you're all ready to go. So I'm really excited that you're in my class. We're going to have tons of fun this year and we're going to learn so much. So I just wanted to say hello and I hope you had a great summer and you did a lot of fun things and you read some great books and I can't wait to officially meet you on the first day of school. So I hope you get a good night's sleep the night before school and keep reading and I will see you very soon. And by the way, I'm in room 231. Okay? I'll see you guys soon. Bye everyone. The next time I would send a video was usually over a school break. Typically it would be maybe the Christmas break or spring break. I would send a video message midweek when it was when they were already been gone about four or five days. I would send a video home saying hi to the parents. I hope they're enjoying their week off with their children and having some family family fun. And I just want to let the kids know how much I miss them and I'm thinking about them and tell them something. I did. Oh, I went skiing with my family or we're going, we went on where I'm actually in Disney world right now or whatever it may be. They love hearing those personal things about you because it creates a personal connection. You're letting them into your personal life. You're being a little bit vulnerable and it really creates such a deeper connection between the parents and the students with you. So I would really think about bringing this in as one of your tools for parent communication because they love it. And what they love even more is that you went above and beyond to send a video message to their child and to them on your school break. It just, it just creates this unbelievable feeling that a parent has like, wow, he or she, like they really care about my, my son or my daughter. It, it just, I found it really strengthened our relationship and I heard it year after year. Oh, they loved your video. Thank you so much for sending it. Oh, we went skiing or we did this. It just was a great way of connecting with parents and connecting with the students before they even knew who I was. And then when they already knew me after a few months of school and they missed me, right? Just like I missed them. Even though we desperately needed our vacation, I still missed them. And sending them that video really felt like we still had this connection and I was thinking of them. And it really, it really helped with my parent connections and my relationships with my parents. So I would urge you to give that a shot and send home quick two, two, three minute video messages before school starts so they don't know who you are and during school breaks so they can see you and learn about what you're doing on your school break and think that, tell them that you're thinking of them. So that's one way. My second strategy for parent communication is having a reflection station in my classroom. And I will show you this picture here right on the screen. My reflection station was the way that I managed my classroom and it was part of my classroom management program in my classroom. It was the way that I helped contain the behaviors in the classroom. So when I'm in reading groups and I'm working with a small group of students and if I have students that are either misbehaving or not doing their work or fooling around and I always give a warning first, you know, Charlie, make better choices. Elizabeth, you know, stop chatting. Make better choices. If I had to correct them more than once during my small group, I would say it's time for you to go to the reflection station and reflect on what you were doing, why you were doing it and how you're going to make better choices. And I talked and then they do a quick writing assignment. Now for kindergartners, you actually have them try their best and write a sentence. What were they doing that they weren't supposed to be doing? Have them use their phonics skills to write a sentence. And then at the end of the day, if your kindergartners didn't write or had difficulty writing, you can write a little note, you know, Sheila was doing this, Tommy was doing this, he or she is going to learn to make better choices the next day. But I talked about this reflection station in detail on back to school night with my parents. So they were aware this is how we create a calm, efficient classroom environment where learning occurs. If it's chaotic and children aren't listening and children are just doing whatever they want, it creates chaos. And with chaos comes no learning, right? So this is one of the ways that we create a calm classroom environment that's respectful, right? So, and then those notes go home, again, I'll show you the picture up here. Those little reflection sheets go home, parents have to sign them so that they know this is what was happening and they can talk to their students, they can talk to their children at home about their behavior during whatever time of the day it was. It's just a powerful strategy to let them know that this is what's happening and this is the way we're handling it, please talk to your child at home about this behavior so we don't have this continue throughout the year. And I just found it was a very positive way of dealing with behavioral issues in the classroom where it wasn't just me calling, Johnny did this, Johnny did this, Johnny did this, Johnny did this. It was just an easier way and a better way of alerting them to what was going on during the day. So that was one of the ways to keep that parent communication open and they were aware of why I was doing it because I shared it with them on back to school night. This is to help us have a calm, effective, respectful classroom environment. That's our goal and this is one of the ways we achieve it. So as long as you tell parents and explain to parents why you're doing this, why this will help your classroom, how this will help learning to occur, they will come on board, they will be okay with it. But if they just get this reflection sheet home and they have no idea what it is, they might be annoyed. But again, you have to set the stage for the expectation at the beginning of the year and I always do that on back to school night. And it's very well received by the parents. So that's the second strategy. The third strategy that I've used throughout my years is, you know how we always make those little class lists that we use for a little check off, you know, like, oh I checked all these papers. You know, we always have a class list that we use as check offs, right? So what I do every day is at the end of every day when I'm kind of cleaning up or I'm answering emails or whatever, I will send two emails to parents every day and they'll be positive emails. I love how Cynthia, you know, sat with Judith today because she had a broken arm on the playground and she couldn't play. So they sat and did puzzles together or they sat and drew together. Or Johnny did such a great job today when Elisa's crayon box fell all over the floor and everything went everywhere and he immediately jumped in to help her clean up so she can get back to what she was doing. So what I love to do is just take these little tidbits from the day and share something positive with the parents. Typically, they only hear from us when it's negative. But if you take the time to reach out with a positive for their child or something positive their child did, you will never believe the power that comes from that and the relationship that's created from that. Typically teachers call when there's a problem or there's an issue or we're having trouble. But if we reach out to share positive and positive affirmations, positive things their children did, then they'll be okay when those reflection stations come home. Or they'll be okay when we say, well this happened today. Because it's an even balance between maybe some negative things that have to go home and we balance it out with the positive notes and the positive affirmations that go home. And then what I do is I have this little check off and I tape it to the table right near where my computer is and it stays there and I check off who I sent a note home to. And when I get through the whole class and everyone has gotten a positive affirmation or a positive note home and I send it via email, again if parents don't have email or they don't have computers, send a quick written note home. Very very powerful. Once it's all done, I toss that list, I get a brand new list and I start over. And it literally takes me five minutes at the end of the day. And it really helps to solidify and cement that parent teacher relationship in the classroom. Because again, you're sharing positives and when you share the negatives, it's not only negative, negative, negative, negative. You've shared positives and we're working on this. You know, this is a problem that we're having. This is an issue that we're having. But you're balancing it out with the positive affirmations as well. And the positive sentiments sent home. So these are three strategies that I've used in my classroom for years. And I have to be honest, I very very very rarely had parent problems in my classroom. Very rarely. I mean, I taught for 23 years and if I had one or two parent issues, that was a lot. So I always brought parents on my side. It's important. You want them to get to know who you are and the fact that you're there to help their child. You love their child. That's all they want. That's all they want. And if you're not a parent or you are a parent, you know that. You want your child to be loved and cared for and taught every day. So if you show that side of yourself, that you're thinking of them and you're caring about them and you're taking time out of your schedule to connect with them, it's a very powerful relationship that you'll create with videos sent home, positive notes sent home, and then it evens out with maybe some negative things that need to go home as well. Or negative things that maybe happened in the classroom or issues that have come up in the classroom. It balances it out and it doesn't feel so heavy for parents when you're calling for a reason that's not so great. So that's it for me today, my friends. And listen, I have this Reflection Station for you as a freebie in the comments below. So don't forget to go to the description and download this Reflection Station freebie to use in your own classroom. And I truly hope that you can use this in your classroom and really create these relationships with your parents. So I hope this helps. I hope you enjoyed this video and please give it a thumbs up and also click that subscribe button and that little bell next to it to get alerted every time one of my new videos goes live, which is every single week. And again, I hope you enjoyed the video. Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in the next one. Bye for now.