Happy Tuesday! Welcome to Week 6 of Getting Ahead of the Game, Summer Edition! Each Tuesday of the summer, I will give you a small task to complete that will help you get ready for that crazy back to school school that waits for us in August!
First impressions are huge. This week your task is to prepare for that first time you meet your students and their parents. For me, this is Meet the Teacher Night! It’s always so fun to meet all of my new students and their families for the first times, but it can also be a little bit overwhelming! After all, everyone is there to meet one person…YOU! Let’s spend a little time preparing this week so that things go as smoothly as possible.
1. Make sure those forms are ready! I have parents fill out a student information form on this night so I already have the information I need before the first day. If you have been keeping up with us, this should already be checked off your list. If not, go back to Week 3 HERE.
2. Make a wish list! Parents can’t help provide classroom supplies if they don’t know what you need! The beginning of the year is the perfect time to ask parents for what you need for a successful school year. I use this circus cupcake stand (that matches my classroom theme) to display the items I need. Parents just take what item they can donate to the classroom.
This was perfect for displaying items I needed! I love being able to reuse it every year too!
I am super blessed with wonderful parents who love Amazon Prime almost as much as I do. This year, I decided to create a wish list on Amazon to share with parents. The best part is that I can add items to the list throughout the year and everything will ship right to me. I just created a QR code that parents will be able to scan and shop!
I hope this will be an easy option for my parents who want to donate to our classroom!
3. Make a small gift to send home with your students. There are SO many cute ideas for this one! My favorite thing to give my students is these little cotton candy buckets because again, it matches my circus theme! You can read all about this sweet little gift HERE.
And DO NOT feel like you have to spend a lot of money on this one. It’s all about making a great first impression and letting those sweet babies know how excited you are to get to know them. Make a video of yourself reading a special bedtime story to your students for them to watch the night before the first day of school or about yourself. A QR code will make it easy for students to watch the video, just add it to a cute graphic! I created this to have at each student’s desk that they can take home, scan the code and watch!
4. Create a check list or scavenger hunt for students to complete with their parents.Meet the Teacher Night is always crazy because there is only one of you and like a million people who want to meet and visit with you. Give your parents and kids something to do that will help them learn about the classroom and get comfortable. Here is an example of mine:
