Like many teachers in these last few weeks, I have been such an absent blogger! I’m so sorry! I’ve been settling in and trying to get my ducks in a row for second grade curriculum. It’s a different world from kindergarten, so it’s quite an adjustment. However, I do have some fun stuff to share with you tonight all about Open House ideas.
Tonight was Open House. I had 12 out of 21 parents and families show up tonight. It was so much fun! Here’s a look at all we did!
First, students drew self-portraits of themselves BEFORE Open House. At the top says ‘guess who’ and students had to get their parents to find their portrait. This was so much fun. The students got SO detailed with their illustrations. And when they came in that night, they were so eager to show their parents. (This will only work if you have Open House after the first day of school.)
On each of the students’ desks:
- QR code that instantly saves my contact information to their phones
- Open House PowerPoint handout
- Curriculum Night invitation
- Letter to parents from student, stapled on top of letter for parent to write to student
- Questionnaire about student from parent’s perspective
By the end of the night, I got almost all the informational forms that I needed to have filled out completed. Plus, I got lots of student questionnaires that their parents filled out. This will help me learn much more about each student.
I tried this apple tree Open House idea that I saw on Pinterest to ask for parent donations. By the end of the night, all but four of them were gone! I was so excited about these extra wish-list items that weren’t on our regular shopping list.
And I combined the back to school forms that I used into one document, which is available on my TPT Store. The fonts and templates that you see in the picture above have been updated recently, so the pages look a bit different. Thanks for checking out my Open House ideas! For more on how to get parents involved, check out how to prevent the summer slide!