Saturday, October 15, 2011

Parent Teacher Conferences

Our parent teacher conferences are coming up in a week and so I am starting to get prepared now. Even though this will be my 7th year teaching, I still get stressed out over conferences. It's so challenging to communicate to parents about how their kindergartener is doing in school in just 15 short minutes! Kindergarten parents also have tons of questions-especially if this is their first child in school, and I like to be able to address all of their questions and concerns. Of course we also have to go through the first quarter report card and I like to show lots of work samples, examples of assessments, and any little anecdotes I might have about the child.

Over the years I have had parents ask me how they can help their child at home, and I've often just given a quick tip or two-usually encouraging them to read lots of books at home! I also always have a few students that are still struggling with basic concepts like name writing and letter recognition at this point in the year and really like to encourage the parents of these students to work with me to support these skills at home.

Last year I finally got my act together and made a list of math tips and a list of literacy tips for parents. They are just quick one-page lists of ideas parents can try at home with their kindergartener. I tried my best to make many of the ideas fun. I handed these tip sheets to parents at the end of our conference and many really liked them.







Feel free to download these if you think your students' parents would find them useful. If you have any tips for successful parent-teacher conferences, I'd love to hear them!

16 comments:

  1. Love these! I have conferences in a week, so these will come in handy! I type up specific notes for each child and give them to parents. They really like this. :) Thanks again! :)
    Cheryl

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Meredith! What font did you use? I'm getting black lines, but I know it will work if I use the correct font. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry the fonts aren't working Chrissy! I should probably change them to more basic fonts so others don't have this same problem. That's what I get for trying to fancy the fonts up! I used a font called LD Blocks for the title and one called LD String Bean for the rest of the text-I honestly can't even remember where I got these fonts. I could always bring you a paper copy :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing these. We had conferences last week with half our students. I made a sheet to use with letter cards but I like these tips. I think I'm going to copy them and put them in their notebooks so they have them. Thanks again.

    http://mskerriandherkrazykindergarten.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. OH MY WORD! You just saved me a ton on time! I owe you big time! LOVE them both!
    Mrs. Wills Kindergarten

    ReplyDelete
  6. These are wonderful!! I am preparing packets for my parents to take home...basic activities that I can easily change depending on the child's level. A lot of work but if they use just one activity, I will be a happy camper! I am definitely going to include these sheets. Thanks for your hard work!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for sharing!! These will be wonderful to share with parents!!!
    Thanks,
    Beth

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for sharing!

    crhdouglas@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you for sharing! I also put packets for each of my children together to share with the parents. Some items that I include are abc, sight word, and number flash cards (that I made) depending on what they need help with.

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are great. Thanks for sharing!!
    Kandice

    ReplyDelete
  11. These are wonderful! Thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you so very much for sharing these wonderful items! I have already printed them and they are in my pile for printing and parent conferences in a few weeks! Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you so much for sharing these.
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  14. can you email me a copy of your Math and Literacy tips! I can't get them to print without gray lines over them!
    aexum@esu15.org THANK YOU!

    ReplyDelete
  15. These are wonderful - thank you! Could you email me .doc copies of each of these? I am also having a hard time converting them into pdf files. Thanks in advance!

    lsuter@germanschool-mn.org

    Leah

    ReplyDelete