Family involvement activities

Purpose
The purpose of this activity is plan for and practice strategies that may encourage family involvement in three areas: family education, family participation (in a classroom setting) and family involvement.

What It Is
You will select, develop, and plan a family education, a family participation, and a family involvement activity to engage family members in your classroom and/or child care facility. You may want to consider ideas that have not previously been put into action in your own program.

What You Do

1. Create three Activity Plans for family involvement.
You will develop and plan an activity you can do with families individually or as a group for each of the areas below:
1. Family Education- To provide family education through classes, workshops, reading, and/or discussion.
2. Family Volunteering- To increase family participation in your classroom.
3. Family Advocacy/Decisions Making/Collaboration- To help family members become more involved with/ for their children politically, in preventive health care, developmentally or in another way of problem solving and sharing.

Suggested ideas include the following but not limited to:
• Invite families to share a food from their culture
• Invite family members to share about their occupation
• Invite families to a special breakfast of lunch
• Invite families to dinner with a special speaker
• Plan a family meeting
• Plan a family workshop on a relevant topic
• Have a multicultural celebrations involving family members
• Create a recipe book with contributions from family members
• Invite family members to share a talent
• Invite family members to read to the children
• Create back packs with fun activities to send home
• Create family literacy bags (book bags) with book and props and/or puppets
• Implement home visits
• Invite family members to create a poster or book about their family with their children
• Invite families to create a poster of various occasions they celebrate

For each activity you select, include the following:
• Activity Plan
o Area (Family Education, Family Participation or Family Advocacy/Decision Making/Collaboration)
o Name of the activity
o Description of the activity
o Outcomes
o Materials and supplies needed
• Invitation (Invite speakers, family members, etc.)
o Include letter or documentation inviting participants to the activity or informing them about what is happening
You do not need to implement any of the activities.

2. Write a Reflection Paper (1-2 pages).
Reflection is a skill that takes practice. Select three of the following questions to include in your reflection:
• One of my strengths in working with families is…
• One of the areas I need to work on in working with families is…
• One of the ways I prefer to communicate with families is…
• I think I should try this in communicating with families…
• In thinking about including families in my curriculum, I believe…
• One thing that has been helpful for me to remember about working with families is…
You may also write about any other topic related to family involvement that is not listed above.

What you will submit:
• Cover sheet with your name
• Activity plan and invitation for Family Education
• Activity plan and invitation for Family Volunteering
• Activity plan and invitation for Family Advocacy/Decision Making/Collaboration
• Reflection Paper
• Complete evaluation rubric