Our district wide Open House is held before school starts so we hold a free dinner we call Picnic with the PTO. We serve grilled hotdogs, chips, cookies, and pop. We also sell spirit wear and have sign up sheets in the classrooms for Room Parents.
Our school has a huge block party a week into the school year. The whole thing is ran by staff so that families truly have family time, although we die hard PTOers do run the Pals info booth! The afternoon includes a cookout, fun activites for the kids, each school age child gets a free book and then there is a DJ. The DJ is really good about getting things moving!
We then have our Fall open house which is usually the third week of school, families can tour the school, meet the teachers, we serve refreshments, have a book fair and this last fall we did a scavenger hunt that went over really good!
One other little thing that the Pals group does is we serve coffee and donuts on the first day of school which is also K orientation day, that is a big hit! Anything to get people excited!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Our school focuses all of its energy on our Back To School BBQ in August before the school year begins.
Students and their immediate families are invited to the free event. When they arrive, the students recieve a "Madison Passport" which they fill in during the event. They must visit their new teacher, visit the PTO table, visit our volunteer coordinator, and more. When they have filled in their passport, they recieve a free book! The PTO serves and cooks the meal of hamburgers, chips, watermelon, and cookies. We have also begun inviting community groups like the fire department and Skagit Literacy to participate.
We have open house and did the ice cream thing which we probably won't do again. It was VERY messy!
And we also have a Boo Hoo Breakfast on the first day.
I heard about a school at the Nashville conference that holds a Block Party and we are definitely going to try and do that!!! We would grill hot dogs, have meet and greet with teachers, invite local community workers(firefighters, policman, ambulance) to come and bring their equipment for the kids and other local businesses to set up at the school. And set up info booths like an Involvement Fair for parents to see how they can help and sign up. Gosh, that sounds like alot! Better get busy!! ha ha
