Distributing Parent Pipelines

Parent Pipelines are a valuable tool for informing families about what their child is learning during Daily 5, and for providing tips so they can support their child's learning at home. 

We are often asked if our Parent Pipelines can be posted on a classroom, school, or district website. The power and purpose behind the pipelines would be undermined if we were to allow this, which is why we respectfully deny such requests. We intend for Parent Pipelines to provide specific, personalized information pertaining to each child's immediate goal and strategy. 

Two unfortunate and unintended consequences happen when families have access to all the pipelines at once.  Either they are overwhelmed and do not use any of them at all, or they take it upon themselves to try to teach every strategy to their children.  This can be especially detrimental if a child does not need a strategy or is not ready for it. 

If you are looking for a way to organize the Parent Pipelines so they are ready at a moment's notice, you will like the idea we got from Hollie Gebhardt when we were in her classroom in Burlington, Iowa. 

Hollie found this hanging wall organizer at a local store. Hollie has her Parent Pipelines hanging on the wall, and when a student is assigned a new strategy during a one-on-one conference, she or the child can easily access the information sheet to take home. If wall space is scarce, a file box with neatly organized file folders would also work.  

If you are a Pinterest user, we have seen some wonderful ideas under Hanging Wall Files DIY.