One year a parent walked into my second grade classroom upset that her daughter had not yet been chosen to go to the principal’s office with a positive note for a reward.
I was confused and felt really badly about it. Her daughter was a super sweet girl and I was sure that I had chosen her for this reward. Problem was, I didn’t have great documentation to prove it. I had a check by her name but Mom didn’t believe it and wasn’t happy.
Does this type of scenario seem familiar to you? We want to build parent communication and send home encouraging student notes. And students LOVE to bring positive notes home! It really makes them feel good. But how to build it into our busy days and have documentation too?
We have 3 quick and easy tips for building positive parent communication for you. And a FREEBIE too!
Tip #1- Prep As Much As You Can Ahead of Time
We are BUSY! No one needs to be told this, right? So anytime I can go ahead and prep items ahead of time that is a win for me! Parent volunteers can help with this too, if you have them.
Set a goal for how many students per week you will try to send home with a note. Print and cut those cards! It is best if you can print a whole class set at one time. Write names on the cards. Now you are ready to send home notes and be sure everyone gets one before starting over!
Tip #2- Documentation
To avoid what happened to me, be sure to document sending home positive student notes. I like check off sheets for this, but obviously that isn’t always enough. Set the cards out and snap a quick picture each week. Place that picture into a digital folder. Now, you have documentation of what has been sent home. Helps you to see whether you are sending those positive notes home on a regular basis too.
Tip #3- Use a Variety of Comments
Use the pictures or screenshots if typing comments on your computer to quickly check that you are not saying the same thing when a student brings home another positive note. Their past note is likely on the refrigerator and we definitely don’t want a repeat comment coming home to sit by the last note saying the same thing!
I hope these quick tips help make sending home positive notes much easier this year! And to make it even better you can download these fun notes for free!
Download these free positive notes on our website store here!
Shannon says
I looked for these in the freebie section and couldn’t find them. Could you please help me locate them so I can download them. Thank you.
Lori says
Hi Shannon!
I am sorry you are having trouble locating the note cards. At the bottom of this post, there is a link to download the note cards from our website store and a link to download them from TpT for whichever way you prefer.
Hope that helps you. Have a great school year!