Need New Meet The Teacher Ideas For Back To School Night?

Meet the Teacher Night can set the tone for the year. It’s a great opportunity to connect with families, share information, and build engagement. 

This event is an introduction to: 

• You 
• Your classroom and class expectations
• Curriculum overview
• Ways to get involved and support the classroom
• How you’ll communicate

Let’s get ready for this powerhouse event and make it memorable. 

Welcome to the classroom

Consider setting up a welcome station that lets families know what to expect. It could direct them to different parts of the room or offer a scavenger hunt of things to find to help them explore. You could have a packet of information you want everyone to get in the welcome station or elsewhere. If you label the packets with students’ names you can make sure to send one to any families who could not come. 

Greet families and students. Encourage students to show their families their seat/cubby and to show them their favorite part of the room. You can leave note cards on students’ desks or at another station where caregivers or siblings can write a note to the student. 

This is a great time to showcase student work. You can use some on bulletin boards or other displays. Put additional work at each student’s desk or cubby. For example, have students create an “About Me” in this grade with things about them and their goals for the year and something students are particularly proud of already.

Meet the teacher ideas to introduce yourself

If you have a formal presentation portion of the evening, share a little bit about yourself — where you are from, how long you’ve been teaching at this school, possibly a little about family or pets, and what you like to do for fun. 

Alternatively, you can include a letter in your information packet or a quiz that parents and students can take that covers similar information. This is a great interactive activity to engage parents and kids together. 

Here’s what to expect

Set expectations with families with these back to school night ideas. 

Some information you’ll want to cover to make sure families are on the same page:

• Classroom rules and expectations
• Daily schedule 
• Any calendar items, such as field trips, class celebrations, or performances (if you have dates, a calendar with this information is helpful, but even noting that certain things come up in particular months is useful)
• Homework expectations — how much, when is it assigned and due 
• What learning you’ll cover this year — curriculum overview. You can share the scope and sequence for phonics. 

Get your FREE phonics scope & sequence and share it on Back to School Night:

You can include a lot of this information in handouts you send home with families, but you can also take an interactive approach with these Meet the Teacher ideas. 

Get kids involved

There are a number of ways to get kids involved in back to school night. Many kids are excited to show their families their classroom and what they do there. You could:

• Model a mini morning meeting. This gives students a chance to go through a routine they know and you can highlight some of the displays in your classroom. 
• Have student volunteers share different classroom rules. 
• Include “Ask your student …” questions at different places around the room to help parents learn about the classroom and for them to engage with kids about their school day. 
• Mini books are a fun way for kids to show parents something they’ve learned. They can also be an activity for students while you talk with parents. Get CVC mini books, consonant blend mini books, and digraph mini books. These make great homework activities, so showing families what they are like is a great idea. 

Use interactive displays

Displays can share information, but interactive displays tend to make more of an impact. These fun meet the teacher night activities can help you connect with families. 

• Make a moveable timeline of the daily schedule. Have parents try to put them in order. Have kids show them what they really do. Question: What is your favorite part of the day?
• Set up a QR code that lets people sign up for your digital newsletter. Let them know how often you will send messages and how you will communicate outside of the newsletter. 
• Invite families to sign up to volunteer right there. 
• Make a wish list for donations. You could have a QR code to a wish list on Amazon — make it easy for them to find the list and do it right there. Or write items like tissues, cleaning wipes, dry-erase markers, and other things you need on sticky notes or note cards and invite families to take one and send the item back with their student. 

Make it memorable with a gift 

Teach students a game in class. Have them show their family how to play. Send a copy home as a welcome gift! You can hand it to students as you say goodbye when the evening is over. 

Get Phoneme Games to use as welcome gifts here. 

Hope these ideas help you get your school year off to a great start!