1. Introduce Yourself and Your Expectations
This is always a good place to start. You will be spending a LOT of time with their children, so parents will want to know a little about who you are.
How you do this is up to you and dependent on the night's format. Some Back to School Nights are at a set time with a schedule, while others allow parents to drop in whenever. Check out the freebies below to help you introduce yourselves to parents at Open House.
2. Have Students Write a Letter to Their Parents
Having students write a letter to their parents or a family member kills multiple birds with one stone. It will allow your students to practice writing with a real-life purpose, engage your parents, and give you something to do on Back To School Night.
Since it is the beginning of the school year, your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students might need some scaffolding to make their writing intelligible and readable. This Back to School Night Letter to Parents Resource walks students through the process of writing a meaningful, thoughtful letter to their parents about a classroom activity they have enjoyed and their favorite area of the classroom.
And as a bonus, it can be used as a beginning of the year writing sample!
3. Have Parents Write a Letter to Their Child
This activity pairs well with the previous one. After reading a letter FROM from their child, parents can write a letter TO their child. You could have students write a letter that they give to their child right away, or save the letter for sometime later in the school year when students might need a little extra encouragement.
This Back to School Night Letter Resource not only includes a scaffolded template to help your students write a successful letter to their parents, but there is also a page for parents to write their own encouraging letter!
4. Have Families Go on an Open House Scavenger Hunt
This is a fun way to keep students and parents engaged while allowing parents to explore your classroom. Have a list things around the classroom for your parents to "find" - with their child's help! Things like:
- their desk
- where they turn in homework
- the classroom library
- a word wall
- another student
- the pencil sharpener
- a map
- tissues
These no prep activities make teaching prefixes, suffixes, and base words fun and easy. It includes:
- prefix and suffix charts
- hands-on word building activities
- fun mazes
- scavenger hunts
- ...and more
Help your students become better and decoding multisyllabic words with this Prefix, Suffix, and Base Words Resource!
5. Have Student Work to Display for Back to School Night
This gives students a chance to show off to their parents, and parents a chance to see what their students are working on. At the beginning of the year, consider choosing to display an activity that allows students to tell a little about themselves, like one of these All About Me Activity Ideas.
This free character traits mobile is a fun way to integrate a character trait lesson with an Open House / Back to School Night Display activity.
And parents always enjoy seeing their child's plans for the future - this simple Hopes and Dreams Template makes that easy.
6. Help Parents Connect With Their Kids
Parents sometimes struggle to get their kids to have meaningful conversations about their school day. Help them out by providing them with questions that will spur discussion.
These End of Day Reflection Questions can be used by both the classroom teacher during dismissal time as well as parents as they pick their children up from school.
You might also like some of these other back to school ideas.
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