We're Going on a Bear Hunt

As an advocate to early literacy, I enjoy conducting workshops for parents to experience transforming a simple story telling session into a meaningful and exciting learning experience.

In 2023, I conducted a "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" workshop for parents.

The objective of the workshop was to allow parents to experience the integration of learning domains in a lesson through a mock-up lesson. It provided an opportunity for home-school partnership as the parents are encouraged to attend together with their child. Through this workshop, I displayed my strengths in story telling by using varying tones of voices, large movements and loud expressions. Another strategy I used was inviting children to retell the story using a storyboard. This provides them an opportunity to reflect their understanding of the storyline and recap the characters and story sequence.

After equipping parents with the strategies to use at home, I didn't want children to leave empty handed! Therefore, they were encouraged to choose one scene from the book and recreate it using various craft materials. Parents were given a set of facilitation questions to help children learn about textures, colours and sizes during their craft making process.

I consider this workshop a success as parents left feedback that they would appreciate having more events like this. It gives them an insight to how their children are learning in school and definitely promotes the love for reading as children experience the power of books through quality time spent with their parents. From this experience, I learnt how important it is that workshops are made meaningful and parents leave with a new set of skills to help their child's development. The term parent-partnership is frequently used in the industry, however this event made me reflect on the quality of the partnership, instead of merely having it because it is a requirement from stakeholders.

It is my duty as an early childhood educator and an advocate to children, to be their voice and share with parents why they are their child's first teacher. I would love to conduct a parent's workshop which will be focused on this topic, as I believe it will help parents understand the role they play in their child's learning and holistic development.