Meet the Teacher is always a stressful (and exciting) time. At my school, we have an entire week to get ready before the kids come. Meet the Teacher is typically the Thursday before school comes back. I feel like I spend half the week making my room look presentable, and then just end up changing it in the first couple of weeks of school.
With that said though, I do not feel like I go over the top for Meet the Teacher. I try to make my room look inviting and I ensure everything is set up for easy organization. The night is busy and crazy with families coming in and I like to be able to spend time talking with the kids about their summer and upcoming school year. I do not like having to spend the whole time telling parents where to put supplies and what papers I need signed.
Here are a few pictures to share how I set up:
I picked up this Hooray balloon from Target a few weeks ago. I think it was about $5. It was super easy to blow up and just added a little bit of fun to Meet the Teacher.
On the left you can see a big crate I set up for Klennix students turn in. The black reading bulletin board is no longer there, and I'm slowly organizing the materials in those white cubbies. Oh, and I definitely moved that Target bag on the floor before parents came in.
Through the windows you can see parts of my office. Every classroom at my school comes with a very decent size teacher office. My office is currently a disaster. I basically just kept moving things in there that I did not have a location for. Oppps. I'll work on cleaning it later.
We have a lot of bus riders at my school, so the first week of school students must have dismissal tags. The bus tags indicate how they go home, and has all the contact information for parents. In the past, I spent way too much time filing these tags out after parents told me their child's transportation. This year I got smart and asked parents to fill them out for me. Winning!
I did not have a fancy sign for "please leave completed bus tags here." It's okay. Everyone lived.
The last thing I do is leave large bins around the classroom for students to organize the supplies that will be used by the entire class. This allows me to put them all away before the first day of school. I also put a (not fancy) anchor chart on the board to tell students which items go inside their desk.
The anchor chart was very useful because students were able to easily (and quickly) get their items organized. The first day of school was still a bit chaotic, but at least most of our supplies were taken of.
That's a wrap for my Meet the Teacher night. It's very simple, but it works.
Do you do anything special for Meet the Teacher? I'd love to hear your ideas! Leave a comment and let me know.
With that said though, I do not feel like I go over the top for Meet the Teacher. I try to make my room look inviting and I ensure everything is set up for easy organization. The night is busy and crazy with families coming in and I like to be able to spend time talking with the kids about their summer and upcoming school year. I do not like having to spend the whole time telling parents where to put supplies and what papers I need signed.
Here are a few pictures to share how I set up:
I picked up this Hooray balloon from Target a few weeks ago. I think it was about $5. It was super easy to blow up and just added a little bit of fun to Meet the Teacher.
On the left you can see a big crate I set up for Klennix students turn in. The black reading bulletin board is no longer there, and I'm slowly organizing the materials in those white cubbies. Oh, and I definitely moved that Target bag on the floor before parents came in.
Through the windows you can see parts of my office. Every classroom at my school comes with a very decent size teacher office. My office is currently a disaster. I basically just kept moving things in there that I did not have a location for. Oppps. I'll work on cleaning it later.
This picture (above) is just to show that it is OKAY to not be fully done in your classroom when parents come. On the far right you will notice some books just shoved in cubbies without bins. There are a lot of cubbies like this on the far left. I had ordered more bins from ReallyGoodStuff but they didn't come in on time. Guess how many parents or kids said something about this? None.
The next two pictures are overviews of my entire room.
The "Ms. Jones is reading, are you?" section is 100% different now. I tore it all off because I didn't like the way it looked. I'm in the process of creating a fake bulletin board for this section. I'll post pictures of it when I finish it.
In the years past, I've always let students pick their own seat for the first week. I have found that this makes a tad more chaos during Meet the Teacher, so I decided to assign seats this year. It make it a lot easier for students to find their seat, pick up their papers, and begin putting supplies away.
On each desk there is a sticky note name tag (because let's be real.... the seats will change once I get to know the kids). There is also a folder with all the back to school paperwork for parents to fill out. I include a simple checklist so parents can ensure they have everything done before turning it back in. We're departmentalized at my school, and my amazing partner teacher created that flip book of information for our parents.
There is also a lollipop with a cute tag from Glitter and Glue 4 k-2.
On my back table I have very simple sign in sheets for parents. (You can ignore the white paper. It was a paper from our front office informing parents of first day of school procedures.)
I did not have a fancy sign for "please leave completed bus tags here." It's okay. Everyone lived.
The last thing I do is leave large bins around the classroom for students to organize the supplies that will be used by the entire class. This allows me to put them all away before the first day of school. I also put a (not fancy) anchor chart on the board to tell students which items go inside their desk.
The anchor chart was very useful because students were able to easily (and quickly) get their items organized. The first day of school was still a bit chaotic, but at least most of our supplies were taken of.
That's a wrap for my Meet the Teacher night. It's very simple, but it works.
Do you do anything special for Meet the Teacher? I'd love to hear your ideas! Leave a comment and let me know.
