The new school year brings many exciting opportunities for your child and his/her teacher.  One of the very best ways to begin connecting to your child’s teacher is to help the teacher get to know them on a more personal level.

Start of School is Hectic for Teachers

The weeks before and during the first part of the school year are hectic.  A teacher not only has a new year’s supplies, students, and schedules to learn, but they have a hundred and one details to organize and orchestrate to begin their year at school.

Letter of Introduction for Your Child

One of the easiest ways to help your child have their best year ever is to partner with your child’s teacher by writing him or her a letter introducing your child.  The letter may be written with your elementary child’s help by asking him/her what they would like their new teacher to know.  Parents know their children best, and often insight into the learning styles and daily behavior cues of a child greatly helps a teacher know how to praise and motivate your child.  Teachers have so many children to learn at once, what a great help it is when a parent takes time to help the teacher know their child better.

Providing Contact Information for All Family Members

As a step family, it is also beneficial to let the teacher  know who all of the child’s parents are, and contact numbers for each.  Classroom newsletters and emails can easily to directed to all families.  Many of my students had grandparents who wanted classroom newsletters and events as well.  Every year some of our “extended family” parents brought unexpected joy to our classroom by learning we were studying something special and unexpectedly offering to share postcards, memories, experiences, or artifacts from that region with our students.  Building a learning community is such an important thing.  Let’s begin this year by becoming part of our child’s learning community and supporting our schools and each other!

Suggested Topics for the letter: Favorite things, strongest subjects, how he/she likes to be rewarded, what they struggle with, favorite things, siblings names and ages, any difficulties from the past, concerns they might have about this year, animals names, sports or hobbies, nicknames, important events in the child’s last 12 months, etc.

Have you ever written the teacher a letter about your child before? What other ways have you helped to break the ice for your children? Come to the forum and discuss with us!