As a teacher, I loved creating opportunities for parents to join the students in the school setting. I learned how most special needs parents feel like they will never experience things such as shows, awards ceremonies, or any other in school related activities with their children. I wanted to change that perspective and create opportunities for parent involvement. I am going to tell you about some of my experiences and how I handled them. Growing up I always loved music, and I always found ways to incorporate music for my students. Which led me to making small music shows or performances. I looked into opportunities such as holidays (winter, Mother’s Day, end of year, etc.) If you choose to do holidays around December, keep in mind to ask families which holidays they celebrate to establish an inclusive show and to make sure families feel comfortable with their child participating. Although any type of family engagement activity may feel overwhelming, I promise it can be done and the reward is amazing. Plus, parents will love the opportunity to experience these moments and share these memories. I will start by sharing, it takes a lot of prepping, practice, and modeling. But the end result will have everyone tearing up and a piece of your heart melting. Every year, I created a Winter Show and Mother’s Day/Parent’s Day. My students would sing and dance for their families, followed by a breakfast. Some schools will have grade level shows, and depending on my group, we would participate. However, I have found that sometimes my students struggles with big audiences or got lost in the rest of the performances. So… I pushed for private activities just for my class. It doesn’t mean I didn’t include my class in school events, but I took it case by case and found ways to modify or accommodate them, if they participated. I always choose to do these activities in school, early in the morning. In order for parents to attend, you must send the invite at least a month in advance. Then you will also send emails, text, and many flyer reminders. Depending of my activity, I would use an empty classroom, restructure my class, or use the cafeteria for the stage. Here are the steps I took to create these events:
Additional Tips and Notes for success:
One of my most memorable and tear jerkers was when I choose to do Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion with an older group of students. I made each student sing a line, and the whole class the chorus. As a gift, I created a CD with the song recorded by my students. I became a producer that year. It was just my students singing the song, no dancing and just sitting down. It does not have to be complicated. The lyrics of that song had the entire staff crying and families too. I choose to make this a private event because I wanted no distractions for my families. I wanted them to take in every single word and lyric my students sang for them. It was not perfect, no matter how many times we practiced in the class and cafeteria. We had to do the song 2 times!! But my families loved it and it was amazing nonetheless. If you don’t feel comfortable doing a music show… pick something else! There are so many things you can do such as breakfast, decorate cookies, arts and crafts, read aloud, acting show. The possibilities are endless. I hope today was useful and it motivated and inspired you!
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