Need ideas for meet the teacher night..?

Question

Well, I'm a first year teacher and I teach first grade. We started back to school Thursday and this coming up Thursday will be our meet the teacher night. Our school is a low income school, so I'm not sure what the turn out will be and I don't really want to plan anything extravagant. I'm looking for some cute activities the kids can do to put up in the room and some ideas to get the parents involved. I like the idea of a scavenger hunt, but my classroom is in a separate building from the rest of the school. I don't know if parents will want to walk all around in the building since my classroom opens to the outside. Any ideas are welcome! Thanks!

Answer 1

I don't get so elaborate. The purpose of Meet the Teacher or Back to School is to meet the teacher and to find out how the teacher runs the class. I have a booklet of my rules and procedures and I go through this and answer questions that the parents might have.

Answer 2

Parents just want to check out the room and you. Since you are new, they will want to see you. My experience is that first and K get the most parents. My school is almost 90% free lunch and I'd get about 14-16 (of 20) of the kids represented by one or more adults when I had first. It's less than half in fifth grade.

If you want more to come, and have the time, create a powerpoint or video of your students giving a tour of the school and classroom. A bit part for each kid. Play it Thursday night. Something about being on TV really excites kids and parents. Plus you are orienting your students to the library, office, playground, nurse? plus the classroom features, including classroom rules.

I've never done it, but my son's teacher did and everyone loved it.