Friday, September 9, 2016

Open House: An adventure in Playdoh!

This last week we had an open house at our school. Rather than stand in the front of the room and discussing my classroom design, expectations, or rules and procedures, I typed up a flyer and sent an email to those who missed open-house about those topics. Instead, at each table I placed Play-doh, paper, various craft supplies, and asked parents to create something they love about about science that they can share with their child. If they hated science, then make something you hate about science. They laughed.

It was awesome to see parents interacting and creating a simple thing to take home to their children. I explained that this is our makerspace and students use this process almost every day to tinker and create something that demonstrates their knowledge. This provides them the freedom of choice to show their mastery. Each group was only with me for 8 minutes but they felt an instant connection to the class and it was a different experience for an open-house.

Having parents see the value of a makerspace is so important for me. I want them to see that my classroom is student-driven and that having flexibility leads to innovation, engagement, motivation, and ultimately student success. At first I was worried how parents would react to the radical open-house experience but it went well. The smiles when they left reassured me it was successful.

Parents go to so many different parent nights or open-houses why not create an experience for them rather than a quick disjointed lecture. The time goes so fast in these things we need to make it memorable. When students came to class the next day they shared stories of their parents and discovering things about them they never knew. A simple task of play-doh design lead to many great conversations. That is all I could have ever hoped for.

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