If you are coming up on a “back-to-school” night, here are some suggestions for involving parents and modeling what the Tribes TLC process is…if your “back-to-school” event has passed, these strategies are still good for a PTA or PTO meeting, or just plan a parent night for Tribes!
You can also view this post in the forum under “weekly Tribes“
  • Have parents introduce themselves (partner introduction-style) with a “I’m proud…(about my son or daughter) statement.

Introduce the agreements as part of the instructions for this, as well as rationale/objectives for the strategy

  • Use “truth or lie” (shorter variation of Two Truths and a Lie) to review what you have said…have some prepared examples/statements made up ahead of time, just in case – be sure to reflect that you have just modeled a strategy you use in class
  • Do a Tribes strategy in class – like “Dream Quilt”, or something that produces a visual.  Post what the students did.  Sometime during your back-to-school presentation, have parents do the same strategy.  Tell them they are doing just what their student did in class today (be sure to include those objectives!).  Then post the “parent version” for the students to see when they return to school the next day.

A nice adaptation of “Dream Quilt” is to have students (and then parents) write sentence strips with the theme of “advice for a good education”…or something like that.

  • “That’s ME!” is a good way to introduce parents, incorporate content, and reflect.  With parents, you can open up the “that’s me” forum so that they can make up some questions/statements.  Have a list prepared, so you don’t get stuck.
  • Think-pair-share is a good model for reflection as well as an opportunity to model something you do in class and explain why/how building a learning community through effective and respectful communication is a part of your classroom procedure.
  • Use “the final countdown” for your quick closing:

Something I learned…

I’m thankful for…

I learned…

A clean, funny joke…