How To Host A Smooth Back to School Night For Families
Back To School Night, or open house night, is one of my favorite days of the back to school season and welcome in the brand new school year! Everyone is excited to be there- teachers, principals, students, parents. It helps the students and parents to feel better about the school year when they meet their child’s teacher, drop off supplies, gather important information, and see their classroom and desk for the first time.
Families will be excited to see their child’s classroom and meet their new teacher! Back To School Night is a great way to begin to build a strong partnership with families. I think Back To School Night is the best part of the beginning of the school year. It took me many years to create a system that works for me and I’m happy to share it with you today!
Create a smooth system
Creating a smooth system for parents to follow is key. You will be busy meeting a whole bunch of different families, possibly all at the same time. You will be comforting families, showing families different areas of the room, explaining bus procedures, writing down allergies, writing reminders that so-and-so rides this bus on Wednesdays instead of being a car rider, etc.
I have signs that I place around the room for them to follow, similar to a scavenger hunt. The signs give the families directions of what to do when they walk in, just in case I am not there to help right away. You can find the stations here or click any of the photos below. Here are the stations I use in my classroom and are also included in the pack (you can also edit the stations in the pack to meet your needs):
- How does your child get home?
- Would you like to volunteer?
- Find your child’s desk.
- Please put supplies in the appropriate bins.
- Put your folders and supply boxes in your cubby.
- Put your binder in a basket.
This is the perfect chance to get to know student faces and families, get important information, and create an overall picture of the school year.
Use Ziploc Bags To Store Papers
For papers that do not need to be filled out right away, put them in ziploc baggies for families to fill out later at home and return to school later. This is the best way to make sure all important documents and pamphlets stay together and do not get lost! Having loose papers to keep track of in the midst of the chaos of school supplies can be very stressful for parents, on top of keeping track of their children.
Minimize the stress and keep it all together for them. Most of the time, students will bring back the papers in the Ziploc bag which makes it easier for me to keep track of on the first day of school when I’m handed things left and right. The form you see is from my Back To School Night pack. You can find the QR tag here.
Leave a treat for your new students
Giving your new students treats is not a necessity. It is just something extra that I like to do. I give them a donut lollipop like the one pictured above. You can find them here. I used those brochures one year too and my families loved it. I got them from Katie at Simply Creative Teaching here. In this brochure, you can include important information about the upcoming school year, like field trips, classroom rules, contact information, daily schedule, special events, parent-teacher conferences, homework policy, and other things students may need to know to have a successful school year.
Label supply bins
Make sure to label each supply bin so families know where to put their school supplies, if they brought them to Back To School Night. This will help you too because you can leave the label on the bin all year and just keep the supplies in there. Then, you’ll have your bins ready for the following year too!
Have a donation center
Make a donation center on your whiteboard or one of your bulletin boards so that if families want to donate something to your classroom, they can. They may not be able to donate something right away, but they will know what your classroom may need. I’m talking about the things that aren’t on your supply list, but things that you will use. Some ideas are construction paper, dry-erase markers, stickers, highlighters, etc. You can also create an Amazon wishlist and share the link with families.
Read your students a bedtime story
You can easily read your students a bedtime story to make them feel more at ease about the beginning of the school year! It is very simple and won’t take you much time to prep at all. All you need is your phone, computer, and wifi to do so. You can follow my directions here. I make a video of me reading “The Night Before First Grade” and upload it to YouTube.
From there, I make a QR code and copy it on a tag. Then, I staple the tag to the ziploc bag that has all the papers in it. Then, it can’t get lost with all the other papers they take home. This is a wonderful way to connect with your new students and their families.
Create A Positive Relationship With Families
In the past, I’ve taken a picture of the students with their families on Back To School Night. I would hang those up before the first day of school on a family bulletin board in our classroom. The beginning of the year can be hard and students miss their families since they’ve been with them all summer. This way, if they miss them they can go look at the bulletin board at their picture.
This creates a warm classroom and your students can also talk about their family members to their peers. Another option instead of taking a photo on Back To School Night is to ask families to send in a family photo sometime in the beginning of the year. This is a great way to build school community.
Create An Activity For Students
If time permits, you can create a station for your students to create something for the beginning of the year. I like to create bookmarks for students to decorate and keep in their book tubs for the school year. You can make personalized bookmarks with this resource. Students can use beads and ribbons to create a tassel on the top of the bookmark, along with crayons and markers to color the bookmarks.
This is not a necessary component to a successful back to school night, and you may not even have time for it, but it is a fun option to have. You can also use it during your first week of school. Then, your students will have a brand new personalized bookmark to use and keep in their book tubs throughout the school year.
Don’t Forget About Siblings
Siblings will come to Back To School Night. Make sure to include a spot in your room for the younger children (think under elementary school age). It can be really helpful to include a small spot in your classroom for these young children to go to build with blocks, play with legos, look at books, color, or play with pattern blocks. By providing these children something to do, you eliminate them getting into something you do not want them to get into and are also providing the families an opportunity to focus more on what they are there to do!
Plan Your Back To School Night Activities
We have two different resources for you to use to make sure you have a successful back to school night. You can use these for any grade level, but there were specifically designed for kindergarten, first grade, or second grade. You can set up your back to school night to set yourself up for the entire year!
Back To School Night (Donut-Themed): This resource includes directional signs, supply labels, donation center, thank you notes, forms, checklists, and treat tags.
Back To School Night (No Theme): This resource includes directional signs, supply labels, bookmark-making station, estimation station, donation center, thank-you notes, forms, checklists, and treat tags. This resource also has digital forms.
Plan For The First Week Of School
In addition to preparing for Back To School Night or Meet The Teacher Night, you also need to plan for your first week of school! Don’t worry- we have you covered for the upcoming school year! Use these resources to have a good start to a great school year!
- First Week of First Grade Ultimate Bundle: This resource includes many different back to school activities, such as a school scavenger hunt, classroom scavenger hunt, name crowns (an alternative to the original name tags), color by code sheets with phonics and math skills, classroom rules booklet, all about me writing craft, The Kissing Hand activities, and so much more!
- First Week of Second Grade: This comprehensive pack includes get to know you games to build classroom community, playdough mats, classroom scavenger hunt, school scavenger hunt, classroom rules activity, no prep worksheets, The Kissing Hand book companion activities, We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Book Companion activities, and dismissal bands.
