Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Parent Gifts and EOY writing

Okay Yall...yesterday I shared what I'm doing for my end of year student gifts, and today I'm sharing my eoy parent gifts! As you know parents can make or break your year! This year I have a whole bunch of really great supportive parents! This week I have my last conferences that include the parent and student together, and I wanted something special for the 'rents that sign up and come...these conferences are voluntary and not mandatory, and in a way serve a "closure" purpose for me but they're a great time of reflecting on our year.
I bought a bunch of mini hand sanitizers from Bath and Body and then did a search in TPT for "Thanks for your helping hands" and found an adorable printable! I don't know who created it because I was in a hurry, but I'm so dang thankful for TPT...everything you need is on there! 




Some of the parents who were especially helpful this year got a personalized note! I was really pleased with the results!

My conferences consist of going over grades, test scores, student evaluations, and "summer scholastic" ideas. I also have an eval for them to complete about me and turn in the next day.  ...I gave a pack of 10 papers to each 'rent that showed up and include the math website suggestions from Mr. Elementary Math :) and the summer reading log from Barnes and Noble.  One of the summer scholastic ideas was for them to send me an email every week summarizing their week. I told them that if they send at least 7 emails summarizing their vacation in at least 5 complete sentences, then I'd have a special sumin'-sumin' for them at the beginning of next year!

Conference papers waiting to be packet-ed!
Today we did a lot of "WORK ON WRITING" to finish up our final projects...one of my "fillers" while they were waiting for a writing conference was to write a letter to the next years class. I'd never done this before, but was super pleased with the results. I had them put their number instead of their name, and plan to give them out to the new students according to their alphabetical "number" on the first day of school next year. For Example: Number 1 wrote a letter to the upcoming number 1. They introduced me to the new class and answered some questions and then on the back wrote their letter...so many of them made me LOL!
I have to share a few...or maybe a lot...

"....not click pins it makes her mad" Can you tell this one really unnerves me! But I love that they wrote "she made me have the most fun in a classroom ever" :)


"Know when to stop playing around" and "have 2 pencils"

"My favorite thing about her is she is so energetic and happy" "Don't interject, be rude, talk back, and a lot more"


"she loves to sing so don't be alarmed"

"Worry about yourself" "She always knows how to help when you need help" :) "Box in your math answers"

"The first thing on your paper is your name and #, or else pitty on you" :) "She loves to sing and write"






"I think you should know that she gives a 'directions test' at the beginning of the year. Read all directions before writing" Hopefully, this one will heed his advice ;)





This one was one of my favs but it's hard to read! It has a lot of good advice

"Be prepared for Mrs. Stewart's random singing when you are in the middle of a problem"


:) I am a singer and they know me well...and I sing everything and anything :)


I have so many projects layin' around waiting to be completed, but find that I can't finish one thing for starting another! I can now mark eoy conference packs and parent gifts off of my list!

Happy eoy planning!

2 comments:

  1. Jen,
    This is a great blog post. Thank you for the shout out!! It was great reading your student's sample writing. Having the students write to next years class was also great. It is always interesting to see how student's perceive your class and the advice they provide.

    Thanks again,
    Greg aka Mr Elementary Math

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  2. I have had my students write letters every year to the next class. We are in a small school, so they get to personalize them. We work together to make a list of the major things we covered and then I let them give any advice they wish they had known. I do check to make sure the are appropriate, but I pretty much let them write whatever they want.

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