I'm new to the site. I'm loving reading everyone's thoughts/ideas.
I'm very interested to hear more about your scavenger hunt! What a great idea! Do you have a copy that I might could see? You give them ice cream upon completion of the hunt?
Our "Sneak A Peek" night is in 2 weeks!
Thank you!
Originally posted by Holly Eighmy: This year we're kicking our open house up a notch! (watching Emeril last night!!) We've invited our local Boys & Girls Club (they offer an after school care program), Safe Key (on-site before and after school program run by our City), Silver State Bicycle Coalition, Boy & Girl Scouts, Mad Science (we're doing their after school program this year), & School House Chess (doing their after school program. We will have a table for our PTA as well. The Mad Science guys are donating a b-day party and the bike coalition is giving away some free helmets. We're doing an ice cream social and having a membership drive as well. Everything we're doing has the ice cream theme to it. Look under "ice cream social" I've posted more details there.
We've made our Open House a very informational night. It runs 5-7:40 pm on the Th. of the first week of school for us. I'm also wanting to do a scavenger hunt with the kids having to introduce their parents to the principal, find bathrooms, Library, Art Room, read the plaques to find out what year our school was built (1952!), etc. That will give them something else to do when they finish their ice cream and before their parents go to the classrooms and to the principal's welcome.
We have a back to school fair about 1 week before school starts and we sell hot dogs, chips and drinks while parents and children find out who their teacher will be and get id's, buy uniforms, etc.
About 1 1/2 weeks into the school year we have our Open House when you can go and see the classrooms, and such. Our PTO has a Spaghetti Dinner following the Open House. We get a lot of the food donated. We charge $5/ea with a maximum of $20 per family. Everyone gets a plate with spaghetti w/meat sauce, salad, roll and a dessert(this year we are thinking of doing rice krispy squares vs. brownies which are donated by families). We also serve lemonade and water. Good Luck!
For our Open House we're going to have balloons and lots of yummy desserts and refreshments. Our Open House is only for an hour so we try to make it less choatic for the parents.
This year we're kicking our open house up a notch! (watching Emeril last night!!) We've invited our local Boys & Girls Club (they offer an after school care program), Safe Key (on-site before and after school program run by our City), Silver State Bicycle Coalition, Boy & Girl Scouts, Mad Science (we're doing their after school program this year), & School House Chess (doing their after school program. We will have a table for our PTA as well. The Mad Science guys are donating a b-day party and the bike coalition is giving away some free helmets. We're doing an ice cream social and having a membership drive as well. Everything we're doing has the ice cream theme to it. Look under "ice cream social" I've posted more details there.
We've made our Open House a very informational night. It runs 5-7:40 pm on the Th. of the first week of school for us. I'm also wanting to do a scavenger hunt with the kids having to introduce their parents to the principal, find bathrooms, Library, Art Room, read the plaques to find out what year our school was built (1952!), etc. That will give them something else to do when they finish their ice cream and before their parents go to the classrooms and to the principal's welcome.
Not sure how much time you have or what your budget is. You will get alot of ideas on here. Some people have BBQs, Ice Cream Socials, Block Parties, etc.
At the elementary I was only asked to provide refreshments. The principal did not allow us to sell spirit items or school supplies at that time. I thought it was a good idea though. The teachers usually have goodies for the students and they are allowed to look around the room and see where they are going to sit and ask questions. We also get our 1,000 pages (ha ha) of papers to fill out at this time. The bus garage is usually there for new students to inform them of the bus students will be riding and the FRC usually does a tour for new students (and parents). One thing I liked to do as pres is give out an information packet on the PTO and take membership dues (they are $1) for the ones that want to sign up. This helps the traffic at the first PTO meeting.We also take membership for our volunteer program which allowed me to meet new parents.
In the past our Open Houses has always been simple and relaxed. That is the way I like it because we are often nervous about starting a new school year (especially my oldest). Since we have a county wide back to school bash I feel like we should keep it simple. We don't want to wear parents out before school even starts.
I'm a the new president for our parent group and am feeling completely incompetent. One of my first tasks is to plan and schedule our annual Open House. The problem is this event has become boring, uninformative and stale. Does anyone have any great ideas how to make this a fun, involved event that will help spark interest for future parent volunteers? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
