My students know that I have a classroom Twitter account where I routinely post awesome things that we're doing throughout the year. It started as a fun way to connect with other educators and reflect on my practice. However, it quickly transformed into an unexpected way to connect with my students' parents! Last year a handful of parents followed my account after I shared my handle with them. Not only do they get to see adorable pictures of their children learning, I also frequently posted pictures of assignments or anchor charts. Parents were able to see what we focused on that day, such as a Readers Workshop teaching point or math Number Talk. My hope is that my posts sparked meaningful conversations at home about what students learned in class that day. The positive response from parents was amazing! I'm planning on shamelessly promoting my Twitter account during Back to School Night this year :) Surprisingly, a handful of this year's parents have already found me on Twitter, which is wonderful!
This year, my new students were SO amazed to find out that they would have a chance to tweet their own thoughts in our room. Here's what the board looks like up close:
- I am proud of my writing
- I am proud that I finished all my work in my WIP folder
- I am proud of my active listening and how I earned a Dib Dollar
- I like the class so far
On Friday morning, the Twitter feed is the first thing students see as they walk in the door. It serves as a positive reminder and helps set the tone for the day. We've only posted once, but I'm already so obsessed with it! And I think my students are, too :) In the future, I hope to actually put my phone into the students' hands and let them Tweet on my account. Right now, that's a bit beyond my comfort level, but this classroom Twitter board is getting us headed in the right direction!