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Building family and community relationships
Students prepared in early childhood degree programs understand that successful early childhood education depends on partnerships with children’s families and communities. They know about, understand, and value the importance and complex characteristics of children’s families and com munities. They use this understanding to create respectful, reciprocal relationships that support and empower families and to involve all families in their children’s development and learning.
This artifact is from ED349: Family, Culture, and Community. This was part of our family engagement project where we had to create an event or activity to engage families with the school and their student's learning. I believe that this artifact fits under this standard because it shows a fun way to get families involved and give teachers the chance to connect with them and form relationships and that sense of trust that is so important in this field.
This is a letter that I wrote for the parents of my student teaching students. My mentor teacher really values her relationships with her parents. We decided that it would be beneficial for me to write a letter to send home before Winter break to introduce myself to parents and families. Family relationships are important within education and by having open communication with them, you are able to build that connection effectively. My students' parents were very appreciative of the letter that I sent to them.
This is a presentation that I created for my ED336: Social Studies for the Young Child. It is an example of a community based field trip that can be done with a second grade classroom in the Waterville, Maine area. This showcases a way that students can be introduced to members of the community. By taking students to a farmers market, they are being introduced to community members that work and live in the community but also to how the food we eats gets from a farm to our tables.
During my student teaching, I felt it was hard to make connections with families. I started sending home teacher mail to families to form a relationship with them even though I wasn't able to meet many of the families. I felt this was creating a positive relationship between me and my students and their families.
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