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Home Visits

    During the summer of 1996, a new tradition was begun at Price’s Fork Elementary. Visits to the homes of kindergarten children became a way that teachers and the principal introduced the idea of coming to school and gave the school staff a greater understanding of the school community. The visits provided a personal connection that strengthened the bond between school and home. It helped to create and sustain the family feeling that the school tries to foster.
    The visits included a gift for the child from the school. This gift was a Welcome to School Bag that included activities to help develop fine motor skills, language, and pre-reading skills. Items in the bag include play-doh, scissors, paper, pencil, crayons, markers, a name card, number strip, alphabet strip, a book, and a coloring book for the child and enrichment ideas, readings on the importance of being involved in the education process, applications for library cards, a school calendar, and a listing of summer activities for the parents. Photographs of the child were taken and became a part of a beginning of the year bulletin board. The board helped the child to recall the visit.
    The visits began as a part of a small school-system grant that provided the funding to purchase the bag of school supplies. The idea behind the grant was that children – and parents – were not always prepared to enter kindergarten. Teachers thought that the chances of a successful first year experience could be improved if teachers and the administrator were to reach out to incoming kindergartners and their parents prior to the first day of class.
    What began as a way to help children ease into the school setting grew into a wonderful opportunity to begin to build a strong relationship between school and home. When approached in the comfortable setting of home, the child and the parents were able to ask individual questions about school in a relaxed way. This initial contact made the school staff more aware of the home setting of the child. For instance, knowing that a child’s driveway was a mile long was invaluable information when the school closed early for bad weather or knowing that the grandparents lived next door helped the teacher’s understanding of the family dynamics.