[00:00:00] Welcome back to Firsty Land. I’m your host, Molly. Today we’re diving into one of the most important nights of your entire school year, which is meet the Teacher night. Listen, we’ve all been there. You’re just about ready to open your doors to parents and your new students. And then you realize you left the refreshments at home, or you forgot to make that special handout.

No teacher wants to be unprepared for a night. That sets the tone for the whole school year. So let’s talk about how to make Meet the Teacher Night a success with a little less stress. 

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 Okay. First up, why does meet the teacher night matter so much? It’s really one of the most important school nights of the year because this is when you’re gonna set the tone for the relationships that you’ll have with parents all year.

It’s important to be friendly, welcoming, and professional. During this orientation, parents are gonna get their first impression of you, and we all know first impressions matter because our first impression of someone can make us really like them or not. So you want your students’ parents to trust you and like you, they don’t have to be your best friend.

And in fact, they really shouldn’t. But respect is important between a teacher and a parent. And so that first open house is when you’re going to establish that relationship. A good [00:02:00] idea is to send a welcome letter or an invitation or something like that to parents ahead of time, inviting kids and their parents to your open house.

Alright, so the next step is to set up your classroom to feel welcoming. Before you begin to write those first week of school lesson plans or anything like that, you’re gonna need to get into your classroom and get it arranged. You definitely want your classroom set up and ready to go before you get ready to greet parents and your new students.

And that doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy a bunch of new furniture and bulletin board displays and stuff like that, but you should make your room neat and tidy. Make sure that things are clean. Have your learning center set up and your bulletin boards covered with some fresh paper and border.

You want your room to be inviting for your new students. Imagine if parents were to walk into their child’s classroom for the first time, and they see boxes piled high and paper scattered everywhere. Well, it’s the same as inviting guests to your home. If there’s a sink full of dirty dishes and [00:03:00] laundry piled on the floor, it doesn’t make a very good impression, right?

So make sure your room is cleaned up and inviting. So the next step, once your room is cleaned up and organized, is to label everything in kindergarten and first grade. You wanna label student cubbies, mailboxes, desks, or anything else that they’re going to be using. When the families get there and meet the teacher night, the kids are gonna wanna look around the room and they’re gonna wanna see where to put their stuff.

So having things labeled ahead of time will actually help you on the first day of school because the kids, they’re already gonna be familiar with where to put their things. It’s also gonna make the kids feel like they’re already belong when they come to meet the teacher night and they see their names all over the classroom.

Plus a little bonus is that by the time you finish labeling everything, you’re probably gonna have all your kids’ names memorized. So that’s a good thing. Okay, the next thing you wanna do is have a plan for how the night will go. You know, when you invite friends over to your house and you [00:04:00] usually have a plan, right?

You might play a game, eat dinner, watch a movie, something like that. You should have a plan for your open house too. When parents and kids come into the classroom and just wander around with no direction, well, that’s usually when problems start to happen in the classroom. That’s when kids are getting into things that you don’t want them to, and you don’t want that to happen. So make sure you have a plan for what you want them to do. Remember, this is your house and you’re inviting them over. So greet the kids and the parents at the door. Tell them where to sit if it’s possible.

Have kids sit at their assigned seats and have some extra chairs for parents beside them. Most people are a little bit nervous and they’re not really sure what to do during open house. So when you have a plan like that, everybody will just feel more comfortable And fun idea for families to do when they first get there is to have a little scavenger hunt made up.

You could have kids find their cubby or their mailbox. Pencil sharpener their seat. Little touches like that can make a big difference at your open house. [00:05:00] Okay, so when everybody’s there and arrived, it’s a good idea to do some sort of presentation to the group. It’s also the time when you can begin to establish your authority in the classroom.

You know, when guests come over to your home, they don’t wander in and outta your bedrooms or open closets. They don’t open up your drawers to see what’s inside, right? Well, that’s because they’re adults and they know what’s expected of them and what the boundaries are in other people’s homes. Well, the same thing applies to your classroom.

You don’t want kids, you know, wandering around and opening up your cupboards and peeking into your drawers and stuff like that. So now’s the time to have a set plan for the night to make it go smoothly. Meet the teacher Night is your chance to set the tone for the entire year. You wanna talk to your parents about your daily schedule, homework expectations.

Your classroom behavior plan and any other procedures that you’re gonna be using during the year? In my room, I like to show a PowerPoint presentation to parents as [00:06:00] I would talk to them about our classroom because it just looked professional and it honestly helped me remember everything that I wanted to say.

In your presentation, you should include things like your bus schedule. Parents always wanna know that your breakfast and lunch routines and how much it costs the prices. Your classroom rules, how you do report cards and your assessments, how you’re gonna communicate with the parents. Are you going to use Class Dojo?

Are you going to send emails? Should they look for a weekly newsletter from you? Stuff like that. Maybe if you have a classroom wishlist, you can share that at meet the teacher night if you’re gonna have a daily snack time. And what that involves, a dress code, if there is one, any kind of volunteering opportunities that you might have at your school or in your classroom.

Now is the time to tell parents about that. Special parties, special events. And also if you’re gonna have a student teacher or an aide in your classroom, you wanna be sure and introduce them at Meet the [00:07:00] Teacher Night. So if you have some kind of a PowerPoint presentation with all this information, it’s gonna make you look really prepared and professional, and it’s gonna calm your nerves too.

Alright, next step is to prepare a little Meet the teacher packet. I think it’s a good idea to give parents a packet of information about your classroom. They’re gonna have a lot of questions at the beginning of the year, and even if you answer them during your open house. People are gonna forget things.

So if you have a nice packet all typed up, parents can refer to it throughout the year. You can include all the things that I just mentioned in the PowerPoint, and if you want, you can even print the slides and use those as your handout. That could be easy. . Parents are going to appreciate having it all in one place, and it saves them from trying to scribble down notes while you’re talking. Okay. Another great idea is to have volunteer signup sheets sitting on a table with some pens or pencils, because if you are gonna want parent helpers during the school year, now’s the time to get those [00:08:00] names.

Put the signup sheets for parties, field trips, and volunteers on a table with some pencils and let them sign up that night. Okay. And be sure to have a space for both the parent’s name and the student’s name, because they don’t always have the matching last names. And later in the year when you go to get helpers for say, you know, your Christmas party, you don’t wanna be like, who is this person who signed up to help?

So you can just easily match the parent name to the child name in your class. Another really important tip for Meet the Teacher Night is to have families bring their child’s school supplies with them that night. I always collected my school supplies before school started, if possible. And the reason for this is because, number one, there’s usually too much stuff for a little kindergartner or first grader to carry all by themselves.

It is a lot for them to be carrying a big giant book bag full of stuff on the first day of school. But also you can have parents basically sort all of the supplies for you during your open house. I [00:09:00] would get some nice plastic boxes from the Dollar Tree and labeled them with the names of all the different school supplies, and then I ask the parents to sort them into the boxes.

It saved me so much time on the first day of school, having everything already collected and put away. And then also be sure to collect your emergency contact sheets if you can at meet the teacher night, because you want those on the first day of school in case of any emergencies. All right, and then finally my last tip is to have a little table with some refreshments.

You can keep it really simple, like cookies and juice boxes or something like that. That works well and it’s easy to clean up. You could also give your students a little gift. Nothing fancy, just a small treat, like a couple of starbursts in a little baggy with a tag that says something like, I’m bursting with excitement to have you in my class.

It’s just a nice little gesture and kids will remember it. I actually have a freebie of that. I’ll put it in the show notes and you can grab it there. Okay, [00:10:00] so wrapping it up, you just wanna make sure that your room is neat and organized. Everything is labeled, and you have a good, solid plan for how the evening is gonna go.

Have a PowerPoint presentation and a little packet of information for parents, and you’re gonna be good to go. All right, so if you’re thinking, how am I gonna get all this put together before my open house? I do have you covered with everything that you need, including an editable PowerPoint and a full meet the teacher night packet in my TPT store, and I’ll post the link for that in the show notes. And remember, this night doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be thoughtful, organized, and welcoming. That’s what parents and kids are gonna remember. As always, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show. Be sure to hit that follow button so you don’t miss any episodes, and I would love it if you would leave a review as a new podcast.

Those reviews really help us to get found so that other teachers can enjoy it as well. All right friends, that’s a wrap for today and as always, remember to make learning feel like [00:11:00] play.