Parent Communication

Communication with parents is a necessary part of teaching. As a parent of an elementary age student, I know the extensive parent communication elementary teachers have with parents. High school teachers have a unique situation because part of our job is to prepare our students to be adults.

Now I know, most of us still call our parents for advice, but how embarrassing would it be to have your father call your college professor or principal and explain you could not finish your assignment the night before due to your stress level! We have a responsibility to our students to make them responsible and hold them accountable without a ton of parent persuasion.

However, every student’s situation and parent/guardian needs are different, so to try to find the perfect balance for each student, I have created a parent communication form for parents to fill out at the beginning of the year. I hope that this communication form will allow me to communicate more effectively and efficiently with all my parents and students in my classes this year!

If you are interested in a getting to form please check out We Teach High School on Teachers Pay Teachers, and choose Parent Communication form.

Interactive Notebooks

I have shared my Interactive Notebook PowerPoint on our TPT store.  The file is completely editable.  I use the first day after the first weekend of school to set up notebooks.  This gives my students the opportunity to get composition books.  I do buy several composition books myself for kids that were not able to find composition books.

I spend they day setting the books up, I write over the presentation to show them how to label pages and how to fill in the Table of Contents.  It takes a little time to reinforce the binding of all the students, and it is easy to mess up, so I keep this task for myself.

I removed all my crazy fonts (so you can use your own).  There is some word art instead, but again, make it to whatever you want.  I hope this makes your year easier!

Folitical Fridays (2016 Election in the classroom)

As we all know, we are in an election year. In any presidential election year, I try to incorporate the election into my lesson plans for my classes, especially my US History course. This year I am trying something new. With the nation more focused than ever on the election and the intense “he said, she said”, I want to have my students look at the election and the candidates through their eyes, instead of the eyes of their parents, friends, Facebook, or the media.

 I plan to have lessons on the primary process, qualifications and the role of a president, views of the major parties and third parties, the Electoral College, role of media and social media, webquests, predictions, and a final map of the election outcome. Here’s to the craziest election I have ever witnessed!