As the year is coming to a close I look back and think of what I did that I was really happy with and what I could have improved on. Luckily this year I had way more in the "happy" category than the "needs improvement" category. One thing I could use improvement on this year was communication with parents. Now I'm not just talking about conferences and phone calls but recording and keeping track of who I sent what to and when. So I decided that next year I wanted to try using a Parent Communication Log. Well I scoured the internet and there wasn't really anything (free) that just jumped out at me, so I decided to create one!
Since it's Teacher Appreciation Week and I feel like this is something everyone will need at some point, I am giving it away for FREE... FOREVER! Even though I won't use it till next year I am actually pretty excited about it! I'm going to get mine bound this weekend but you could also put it in a small binder. I have so many binders in my room and if it's bound it will actually fit between my computer and phone nicely.
I want to show you how I plan on using it in my classroom and would love to know how you would use it or if you would add any other pages!
The cover of the Communication Log is an Apple Design and it is specifically for next year (every year I will update). There is a place for your name, grade level, and school.
For the class roster I added numbers for multiple reasons. First, it's always nice to just glance and see how many students you have in your class. Second, in our class every student gets a number and that is their number for multiple things all year. The same number they get in class, they will get in the Communication Log. This will also be helpful later on in the Student Logs.
There are 5 different pages for the address book. The first picture is the first page of addresses that you see in the book. The second page is the same layout for the next four pages except that the graphic is sometimes different and there is a new quote for each page.
Next up is the actual communication log (or student log as I like to call it). Everyone might have their own way to go about it but here is what I did. I printed off about 25 of these, front and back. Each student will receive one sheet (six logs). Now I know that some students will use up WAY more than one sheet and others might not even fill one up, but I didn't want to use up too much paper yet so we'll give it a go and see how it works. Now if you have this in a binder then it doesn't matter and you can keep adding papers as you need.
Breakdown of log: There is a place for the student's name, parent/guardian's name, date and time, reason/outcome, who requested the conference and how. I use the small box on the bottom right for the student's number (I spoke about it in the class roster section). It makes it easier to find a student's page without having to use tabs. You could use it for just page numbers though, totally your call!
Last but not least the Communication Tracker. This is another simple way to kind of tally or see how many times you have (or have not) communicated with a parent. I like to send home positive postcards and what not but with so many students I can never remember who got what and when. With this tracker I can now see who has never received any "fun mail" or who might need to come in for a conference. Instead of check marks, I put what form of communication we had and I included a key for you as well.
And the back cover...
That's pretty much it in a nut shell! Nothing overly fancy but it is still fun and I won't mind looking at it everyday :o) If you want your free copy head on over to my
TPT store! I hope you enjoy this little treat for next year (don't pretend like y'all aren't all thinking about it) and have a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week!
