Parent Sessions
Sessions were organised to encourage Parents of Reception
children to come and join a very relaxed workshop focussing on
the following:How you can help your child at home
Importance of play
Introduction to the Phonics programme
Reading at home
Activities and games at home
Making play dough
Accessing the Resource Centre
Being Involved
Community Room
Feedback
Following last years Reception work with the MABD project lots of points
were highlighted through talking to parents and home visits therefore
continuation of the project was essential and the above points were significant
to promote awareness of what went on in their children’s classrooms and how
they could help at home.
Parents were very unsure about how their children were taught
phonics, if they were unable to read then how would they read to their
children, what learning through play meant, how they could help their
children at home, etc but most of all this proved that they were very
eager to help but didn’t know how!
Parents were firstly invited in and given Introduction Packs consisting
of writing patterns, colouring sheets, phase 1 phonics, other activity
sheets and pencils, colouring pencils and crayons.
We started by showing parents simple activities that will encourage them to
make their own games etc and get involved by using things around the home and
not having to go out to buy lots of resources etc
Fine Motor activities
Make your own threading activities – with use
of a simple picture stuck onto card and hole
punched, then use their dads shoe laces!! Great,
other ways is by use of pasta tubes, cotton
reels, and buttons anything that has holes in it!
Using lids to pour a little flour, cornflour –
gloop, rice, lentils, shaving foam etc so
children are able to use their fingers to
make marks, shapes, form letters etc if you
have add glitter, sequins, food colouring etc
to make it more exciting.
Add tools like toothbrushes, pencils, spoons,
sieves etc just look around your homes.
And especially have lots of fun!!
Making up games like pegging up letters
pictures etc makes it much more fun than just
sitting and teaching phonics. Introducing
different ways e.g. play hide and seek with the
letters, use blue tac so they can stick the letters
on walls etc these are all activities that can be
played at home
Find objects around the home that begin with a
certain letter
e.g. ‘S’ slippers, socks, spoon, sellotape etc
‘t’ telephone, television, tap, tin etc
Play games like sorting, hide and seek, cover the
objects with a towel so children don’t see what
they are going to choose, this makes it more fun
and exciting.
Encourage parents to make
playdough at home and what the
benefits are for children to knead,
roll, pinch, pat etc and use of
tools like forks, straws, spoons,
pegs, sticks, scissors to cut it etc
they are not just playing they are
learning too!!
Sharing books is so important, we showed
parents what to do if they can not read, make
up stories using the pictures, talk about what
they see on the pages, ask questions, how
to act out stories at home make storytelling
exciting.
Parents were shown how phonics is
taught in class and how they can help
at home.
children learn through play, if it’s
enjoyable they will want to play more
so we showed parents how they can
think of ideas that will encourage their
children to enjoy phonics.
Free resources available to parents from the Great Lever Resource Centre –
parents were shown what they could do with the free resources and how this
will help their children become confident learners.
Parents were given lots of ideas of
what to do with the free resources
and how this would help their
children.
Mums and Dads joined us for the sessions.
Parents really enjoyed the sessions,
some of the comments made were:-
 Very useful, enjoyed it.
 It has given me more ideas to be able to use
with my children, also informs me of how
they are taught at school.
 Very helpful and encouraging. Very
interactive and made a lot of difference.
Very educative as well, now I can look
forward to playing and learning.
 It helped by making us understand the
learning process of letters, also it gave
ideas on what to make to help them learn,
just by using things from around the house.
 More sessions and community room will
give us a chance to meet other parents and gain useful tips.
 I love it!
 I found it extremely helpful and interesting, an absolute eye opener to different methods of
teaching young children.
 We found the session very useful, we would like more sessions like this, we enjoyed the play
dough we had never made it before.
 Learn new skills on reading, finding new skills on writing, made aware of things that make
kids exciting e.g. playing different games.
 I found it useful as I wasn’t sure on the phonics but Mrs Dawber explained it to me and
now I’m sure I would be able to help my child.
 Good ideas to interact with child and how to make playtime fun for both children and
parents.
 It is very good nice to learn more things about children.
 I would like more sessions like this.
 How often will they have sessions like this?
I have attached the Evaluation sheets for these sessions where the above information was
taken from. The sheets also show how interested parents are in coming into school and
possibly helping or being part of the community room that will be up and running very
soon.
Parents have shown that they really would like to get involved, but sometimes are unsure of
what it is that they can do. Nearly all parents were unaware of the phonics taught in
school and many were already teaching the alphabet and wanted to know why letter
sounds were taught. Some parents would read books with their children by pronouncing
each letter sound in each word as they thought this was how it was done! Others would not
read or share books because if they can’t read then it wasn’t up to them but once made
aware of the different ways to share books they were quite shocked. Playing simple games
that encouraged learning within the home was a real eye opener to most parents and
therefore concludes that sessions like this running throughout the year possibly once a term
with focus on what’s happening throughout the term and how they can help would be so
useful for parents.
We have made a list of parent whom have shown a keen interest in helping in the
community room as well as possibly coming in to help teachers make resources etc that will
not only benefit their children but those in the class. Starting a small parents working group
who will be committed to help whether it be on a regular basis or once a month will benefit
other parents, class teachers as well as the children.