“Home and school are a young child’s two more important worlds. Children must bridge these two worlds every day. If home and school are connected in positive and respectful ways, children feel secure. When the two worlds are at odds because of adults’ apathy, lack of understanding, or an inability to work together, children suffer. Teachers can build partnerships when they truly value the family’s role in a child’s education and recognize how much they can accomplish by working with families.”
The words above begin the first paragraph in the chapter “Partnering with Families” in Teaching Strategies’ The Creative Curriculum Volume 1: The Foundation. When our ReadyRosie team of educators and family advocates read those words, there was a collective cheer of affirmation and enthusiasm about the possibilities of this new collaboration.
We are excited to take the next steps forward together with a focus on connecting home and school in positive and respectful ways. We’re sharing the first two here. Stay tuned for more!
1. Beginning the Year/The First Six Weeks
The content development teams at both TeachingStrategies and ReadyRosie worked closely together to align ReadyRosie’s Modeled Moments and Research and Answers videos to The Creative Curriculum for Preschool’s Teaching Guide for Beginning the Year and The First Six Weeks. For each of the six Focus Questions, teachers will find a playlist ready to share with families.
The message included in the playlist has been crafted with accessible language and the intent to help families better understand the classroom focus for the week. When applicable, the playlist message also includes content taken directly from the “Family Partnerships” suggestions with communication such as, “We would also love to get to know your family better! Please send a family photo with your child to display in our classroom. Be on the lookout for an invitation to join us as we take a walk around our school.” Additionally, pre-selected Modeled Moments show families how to continue conversations begun at school on topics such as talking about feelings and routines that help with transition times.
These playlists can be found at https://app.readyrosie.com/en/playlists under the tab “Beginning the Year PreK.”
2. Intentional Teaching Experiences
Users of both Creative Curriculum and/or GOLD will see the direct connection between curriculum, assessment, and families through the Intentional Teaching Opportunity and ReadyRosie Alignment for Infants, Toddlers, and Twos and the Intentional Teaching Experience and ReadyRosie Alignment for Preschool. As teachers are guiding experiences or planning observations, they can create a family connection by searching for the aligned ReadyRosie Modeled Moment and sharing it as a playlist with all families or sending it as an individual video to one student’s family.
These alignments can be found in the Teaching Strategies folder under “Alignments and Curriculum Maps” in https://app.readyrosie.com/en/resource_categories.
How will you accomplish more with your students this year by working with families and valuing their role in their child’s education? Tag @ReadyRosie and @TeachingStrategiesForEarlyChildhood to let us know your plans for #familyengagement.
Contact us today to discuss how these alignments can benefit your school or program at info@readyrosie.com.