Magical Moms at Zimmerman
Increasingly parents are realizing that they need to get more involved with their child’s education than just Parent-Teacher Associations and teacher conferences. Taking their cue from the Dad’s “Watch Dogs” program, a national program to get fathers more involved in their child’s education, a local group of mothers has started the “Magical Mondays” program. Lead by their Instructional Coach Tracy Peterson, herself a former teacher the mom’s intention is to start each Monday with a fun school activity. The idea is to improve the mom’s and the child’s skills and to allow moms to know their child’s friends and set up play dates and other activities. Wahpeton Rotary members heard about the program from Ms. Peterson during their regular meeting at noon at Prante’s on October 14th.
Much of what is done is to promote learning activities – inexpensive things that parents can do at home to help their child learn. Ms. Peterson works with the moms in an open classroom to demonstrate thirty different set ups that help improve math and reading skills. The activities are based on the curriculum so that the moms learn what the child is learning and may need help with. The Monday morning sessions run from 7:45 A.M. until 8:40 A.M. the last fifteen to twenty minutes of which are a discussion with faculty directed at what can be done to help children in the class. The moms get inexpensive activity packets to take home. Each cycle is 5 weeks long and the last Monday this fall there was 80 % parental involvement including some fathers. There will be another 5 week cycle during the winter. Currently the program involves kindergarten at Zimmerman. The involvement of the parents within the school has been well accepted by the kindergarten teachers and school administration.