Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.
During my EDUC 490 practicum I had the opportunity to participate in meeting this standard! This is something that I didn’t think would happen until my final practicum as it is 10 weeks, instead of the shorter 4 week time frame, but I am so glad I had this opportunity!
One of the parents in my Grade 3 class had sent my Coaching Teacher an email with an idea she had come across on her Facebook concerning the senior population in nursing homes during Covid-19. We all know that during the Covid-19 pandemic, seniors, who are in these long-term care homes, are unable to visit family and friends who reside outside of the establishment. This is, of course, a very heartbreaking and lonely situation for these individuals. The Facebook post that this parent saw, suggested the idea of sending Christmas cards to seniors in such circumstances to help them feel remembered and loved during this tough season of life. My Coaching Teacher and I thought that this is an incredible way to show love to these seniors, as well as create a fun, meaningful lesson!
The first thing we needed to do was create the Christmas cards. To do this I taught an Art lesson where we painted warm and cool Christmas tress with a beautiful sunset background and snow falling from the sky. We then scanned the each students art project (once the art was dry) and printed it onto card stock and created the Christmas cards. Once this was all complete, I taught an English Language Arts lesson where we wrote our cards to the seniors! The students loved seeing their beautiful art on the front of their Christmas card, and were so proud of themselves for writing such heartwarming words to the seniors. Once we had all of our beautiful cards ready, I handed them off to the parent who organized the idea, and she dropped off the cards to the care home.
This connects with Standard 4 because it shows myself (the teacher) allowing parental involvement (and ideas) in my lessons. Furthermore, once the word got out that my students were doing this for the seniors, one of the High School teachers reached out and asked if they could also participate. This teacher wanted to use the Christmas cards created by my students (we asked permission from each student to use their artwork – not every student was okay with this) to have the high school students write their own cards. Not only did this lesson incorporate parental involvement, but also involvement from others within our school community!