As the school the year starts to wind down, it’s a great time to bring in some of your parents to volunteer. Have parents come in and teach the students about a hobby or something fun they know. I once had a parent who was great at making paper airplanes. My class spent an afternoon before the end of the year learning how to make and fly amazing airplanes. Couple that with a story on planes, some background information on the history of flight, and even work in a math lesson on aerodynamics and voila, a great afternoon for the lasts days at school!
Stay tuned for more fun end of year ideas…
Since moving from elementary school to teaching at the high school level, I am finding it more difficult to get parents involved. They don’t seem to have time to attend meetings about their child yet alone volunteer in the classroom. I still think having parents as class volunteers can be so effective. It’s unfortunate that work schedules seem to preclude parents from being an active participant in our classroom. Any suggestions?
Great question. At the beginning of the year I always sent home a letter about parent volunteers. I addressed your exact concern. I suggested to parents that they keep an eye on my website for upcoming topics and units of study. This way if they saw something that they could come in and help with, they had more time to plan an hour or two off from work. If you don’t have a website, periodic “newsletter” type notices home will work too. I also mentioned volunteer opportunities at back to school night. I have found if parents have some advanced notice they can usually work something out, and volunteering in high school is especially beneficial since parents and children tend to do fewer activities together in general.
Good luck!
Thanks for your reply. Is the letter that you referred to on your website or in your book? I prefer not to reinvent the wheel if you have something that I can adapt to meet my needs. Now is the time that I begin to make notes of the things I can improve upon to make next year even better than this one. If you can direct me to some of your links that might help with the start of the school year, I’d appreciate it.
There actually is a sample volunteer letter under the From Our Books tab. It’s on the freebies page, and there’s another sample letter in the book. You would have to change it for high school, but can take the general idea and easily adapt it for your subject and age group. I hope it works for you, and thanks for visiting our website.