Back to School Night

Fulfilling the honorary duty of a first year teacher... bringing the staff starbucks- so we could get through the night! It was definitely a loong day! Oh, and I almost fell over with all those drinks.

My crazy insane back to school night cookies. Yes they took three hours to make, and yes I hand cut them, and yes I mixed the frosting myself.
I don't know what I was thinking. Totally an insane venture.
When I was finished, my dad asked me why I made monkey cookies!!! AHH, those are scissors if anyone was wondering.

These are the second batch of cookies I made for the parents to enjoy at back to school night.  To make them, I used sugar cookie dough (store bought) rolled it out, cut the shapes I wanted (I drew the shapes on paper and used the templates to cut around) then baked them.  To make the frosting I started with white frosting (store bought) and added food coloring. I also bought black icing since its just easier.

*Note: I was inspired from pictures I found on google images.

I had the parents decorate these pop sickle sticks to look like their child.  I thought they turned out really cute.  I now use them to pick students randomly to help me with things or answer questions.

This is our class wishing tree.  For back to school night I wrote things we were wishing our classroom had onto apples and attached them to our classroom tree.  Then I invited parents to take a wish and fulfill it for us.  Some parents did and it was a splendid exercise.  What a great way to allow parents to help anonymously.  They loved it and we actually received some of our wishes.

This is the flyer I put up which explained what our wishing tree was and its purpose.  This turned out to be a nice display to have up around the classroom for parents to peruse while they walked around.  

Before…

If you ere on the “tad to ambitious side” as I do, you might be thinking about trying to impress your student’s parents with fun crafts and packets and interesting things when they visit your room.  Picture this, I’m in my new cute black dress and grey wedges running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find the stapler. 

I originally thought back to school night started at 7:00 and at 5:45 discovered the start time was in fact 6:30.  To those of you who are always prepared and a week ahead on everything… disregard this caution.  But for the rest of you normal people out there, don’t save your speech practice/flyer packet assembly for the thirty minutes before parents arrive.  Something may come up that will catch you off guard.  Also, when assembling packets, it is best to invest in a paper sorter.  Putting packets together when they are comprised of more than five pages is maddening, especially when you’re on a time crunch.

During…

Be prepared, most likely you will not have full participation.  Don’t get offended if some parents don’t show up.  Inevitably there will always be at least one family that doesn’t participate (forgets to bring back folder, doesn’t send back signed forms, doesn’t come to school functions)

Tip:  Just make sure you figure out the basics before adding all the interesting flourishes.  I was so consumed creating cookies, designing fun activities (like writing their child a note) and cleaning my classroom that I saved the most important task for last.