A day in the life of an early childhood education professional is filled with many different roles, from educator, to caregiver, to role-model, and even to protector. It is crucial that in all of these roles, effective communication is present. Gestwicki discusses several strategies that educators can use to effectively communicate with the families of children in their care. In addition, the required readings this week share some effective communication tools that early childhood professionals can use to support home school partnerships. Some specific methods that educators can use to communicate with families are:

1) Electronic Communication (i.e., Newsletter, Website, Video, Text, Blog)

2) Bulletin Boards That Make Learning Visible or Classroom Displays

3) Traveling Backpacks

All of these tools allow educators to communicate with families, to share ideas and information, or engage them in supporting their child’s learning. Using these ideas, as well as the recommended readings for each tool, develop a model of how you can use one of these tools to engage in effective communication with families on a chosen topic.

For this discussion, choose a content area of interest such math, reading, writing, art, music, developmental play, science, etc. 

Select one tool that you will use to create a project to share with families on your chosen content topic (e.g. a webpage for your families that explains the importance of play, a bulletin board for an environment that shows several science activities that families could do with their child, a traveling backpack that children could take home to explore number sense with their families). The tool you select must be colorful and reflect master's degree work.

****After you create your chosen tool, you must then state the following

1. Tool Chosen: 

2. Purpose of Tool/Communication

3. What’s on the tool you chose/selected?