Discussions

Group Focus

Create one activity (to work for a group of families) that will encourage the positive relationship between an educator and a students' family. The academic activity/strategy should focus on the community as a whole and increasing the involvement of parents school wide. The goal is to encourage each student's individual family to become a significant participant in their child's learning. Name the academic activity/strategy and give an explanation of how the academic activity/strategy can change the climate of family-school relations in a school. The activity/strategy should be engaging to both students and parents and will demonstrate the understanding of how parents involvement improves students learning. You must include at least one reference, in addition to the text, to support your response. Consider using the U.S. Department of Education or the National Education Association.

FINE Publication

Choose one article or report from Harvard Family Research Project: Family Involvement and Publications Resources. Read and review the article/report on the importance of family-school collaboration. Provide a summary of the article and state how you would implement this information in your own classroom/school. Respond to at least two of your classmates' postings.

Assignment

Using a Storybook to Involve Families

As you have learned, one way to involve families is to use storybooks. For this assignment you will first review the Harvard Family Research Project Storybook Cornerand read the overview regarding the Family Involvement Network Project and the Family Involvement Storybook Project. Read Tomasito's Mother Comes to Schooland the accompanying activities.

Choose a book from Harvard Family Research Project: Family Involvement Storybook Selections or from Reading is Fundamental: Multicultural Booklist.

Then, from the resources above and your readings from the text, create a lesson to engage children and their families. Your lesson should include the following elements and should be four-six pages in length not including the title and references page. You will need to include at least three credible sources, one of which must be your text. Use all three sources to cite your work and be sure to use correct APA formatting as per the Ashford Writing Center Guidelines.

Summarize the text in your own words.

Describe your rationale for choosing the book and state what you hope to accomplish by using it with your students and their families. Write a family letter about your chosen story book and invite families to attend school to take part in group activities related to the book.

Create at least five discussion questions to use with your students and their families.

Describe two different activities that can be completed by families and their children in the classroom. Be sure to cite your source(s) for these activities.

Describe one activity that can be completed by the family at home. Be sure to cite your source for this activity.

• Create an evaluation form to solicit feedback from parents and students to assess the value of this program.
• Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.
• ek students will:
• Create an activity that encourages a collaborative family-school partnership.
• Summarize the research evidence regarding the effectiveness of family-school collaboration.
• Develop a literacy project that promotes family involvement.