Building a Home - School Connection with Learning Games

Are you thinking about ways to build a connection with your class families this year?  With this crazy mix of teaching formats that schools will be using, you may need to be resourceful to develop a home-school connection with families that you might never get the chance to meet in real life. 

Just one more challenge for teachers to face... and conquer!... in this new school year!

Do you send games home for families to practice skills with their children? Games are a non-threatening enjoyable way for families to come together and support children's learning while they have fun together!

Here's a little freebie that might help you as you work on building open communication and a mutually supportive relationship with your students' families.

Click here to download these letters at my TpT store.

This resource includes tips for parents about playing games together. For your convenience, the download is provided in both Spanish and English, and has both portrait and landscape orientations in each language. 

One of the most important tips in the letter is "please let the teacher know if your child has a problem with a skill".  Without the usual ability to be constantly watching and making informed decisions, changing the course of instruction for individuals or even the whole class as needed, teachers will be depending more than ever on information from families! Open that avenue of communication!

Each letter is a separate JPEG, to make it easier to either send home digitally or post on your password-protected classroom website.

And if by chance your school is holding in-person Meet the Teacher or Back to School Night events, these make great hand-outs!

The directions are just a bit specific to my easy prep one-page games, which I have soooooo many of in my TpT store, but you can really use them with almost any game that you send home.  Click here to see my one-page games!  

Would you like to sample some free one-page games?  Here's Johnny Appleseed's Subtraction  and Pirate Addition Doubles Strategy Games, both of which are great for the upcoming September "events", Johnny Appleseed Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day.  You can simply send the link to your class families, or you can easily create a JPEG by using your snipping tool to take a "picture" of the page and send the game to them that way.

What will you be trying this year to increase communication with your students' families?