My district holds Back to School Night the night before school starts, at least for the TK – 5 schools. I personally love this. No parents are asking about behaviors, assignments, etc. I get to meet them and get to know each family a bit. It also helps the kiddos see where to report to in the morning. I really enjoy this model.
This leads me to August 2019. Sometime during my classroom setup, I got the idea to post a giant poster in the room and invite parents to write little words of encouragement. This was the last year in elementary before they went off to middle school. I wanted to make it memorable. Little did any of us realize that the universe was most certainly going to make it a memorable school year!
Some notes touched on the importance of making mistakes, believing in yourself, and asking for help when needed. This poster stayed up in our room for a long time after school started. I referred to them from time to time reminding them of what their families wanted them to know.
We have many multilingual families and some monolingual families (non-English). They were invited to write in the language of their choice. Had a parent wanted something written for them, I certainly would have helped with that too. Their words mattered. Side note, as I sat to write this today, I realized I wrote about it in 2019 too. Funny how a great idea sticks with you.
That is not to say that the process wasn’t without its pitfalls. First of all, one of my darlings kept selecting the > on the top of the Jamboard which, at one point, created 28 jams. Secondly, all uploaded images upload in the center of the jam. Fortunately, I was demonstrating when a student uploaded hers on the same jam as I was on. This allowed us to stop and see what happens. Great learning opportunity! That happy happenstance helped students to be respectful when uploading.
I use Google Forms to collect adjectives from students. The students don’t know why I’m doing it. I ask for three adjectives to describe their classmates. We brainstorm a list of positive qualities that could be used to describe someone. I do 3 students at a time. Any more than that and the students start to repeat themselves and it’s less personal. I take the adjectives, check spelling, and place them in a word cloud generator. I use 
The question became: How am I going to communicate with my students? At first, I thought about doing videos on YouTube. Easy enough. I could record on my phone and upload. Then, after talking to a friend, I decided that Flipgrid was a better option. I could keep it private AND use the students’ names. I wanted to remind O to clean up, remind A to do work and not surf the web, and give shout outs to those who I was sure were doing the right thing. This worked out well. I was in contact with the sub and could customize my message each day. The kids really enjoyed it and LOVED hearing their names in the morning.
Nowa Techie 