Character-Building Workbooks Best Implementation Practices
Improve School-to-Home Communication
The Unleash the Greatness in Your Child or Youth Workbook Series is a great way for parents to do meaningful, positive character-building activities with their children at home. Each month, parents are provided with seven ways to teach and reinforce a positive character trait that builds one positive behavior on another. The 164-page workbook also provides a Reflection Log each month to document the positive parent-child interactions at home. Additionally, the classroom grade-level readin reinforcement book back (12 books, one for each trait) is highly recommended.
- Prior to implemention, provide parents with the 15-minute “I Care” Positive Parenting Training available on CD-ROM. In addition to parent training, the grade-level Companion CD-ROM contains Teacher Lesson Plans, Student Mastery Activities, Bulletin Board Messages, certificates, and more. A CD-ROM comes free with each purchase of 15 or more workbooks per classroom per grade level.
- At the beginning of each month, send home the activities pages for the month from each student’s workbook (staple them together), which include all the pages up to the Reflection Log. The pages are perforated for easy removal. The workbooks require no copying because they are consumable for each student, and using them is a big cost savings over copying the activities each month.
- Teach, reinforce, and model the trait during the month using the “I Care” Teacher Lesson Plans. Keep the character trait of the month visible in the classroom, using the Bulletin Board Messages. Integrate the character trait and information from the returned Reflection Log into classroom instruction.
- At the end of the month, send home the Reflection Log for parents to complete, and request that it be returned the next day. Parents will share the number of activities that were sent home that they completed, along with five additional positive activities they did with their child that were not on the activity sheets. They will also indicate if they heard something positive about their children from school.
- Also, at the end of the month, ask students to complete the Mastery Activities for each month’s character trait. These activities require students to think critically about each month’s character trait and the teacher will determine if they master the character trait.
- Maintain a file with the Reflection Logs and Student Mastery Activities for documentation of parent engagement and character development.
- Contact “I Care” Products & Services about the On-Line parent engagement Data Management Service. Data from the Reflection Log and the Mastery Activity Sheet can be entered into the service and reports can be generated for parent engagement and character development for each student, classroom, school, and school district.
