Family involvement is the key to a student’s success. The predicament is that many parents aren’t sure how they can best help their child succeed, and many have no support or encouragement for their own accomplishments as parents. In an effort to support parents, students, and schools in the NWESD region, the Migrant program began to establish learning collaborations. It brought together parents, their children, and their children’s teachers for the first Regional Migrant Family Learning Festival at Allen Elementary School in the Burlington-Edison School District on December 5, 2015. I was able to pop by this fun event and be an active participant in some of the hands-on activities!
The festival was offered in an effort to empower parents to realize that they do have a leadership role in their child’s education. Parents are the first teachers. They may not be aware of what they know and can do to foster a love of learning in every child. For school personnel, the Festival provided practical tips on how to set up an evening for family engagement and ideas to include leadership for students and parents.
Parents, students, and staff participated in learning and modeling ways to support their child’s learning in the content areas of Reading, Science and Math. Families were also provided resource materials to support learning at home including books, math games, and science games.
The science session actively engaged students, families, and staff in fun, hands-on, engineering activities using the traditional Mexican top. This was probably my favorite part of the day – there was a lot of laughter around my table!
If you missed the Festival and you as a parent, student, or school are interested in experiencing this type of learning collaboration, you can get in touch with Patricia Bennett at 360-299-4048 or pbennett@nwesd.org.
