The Owl Teach: Back to School Bash Week 2: Meet the Teacher Ideas

I'm so excited to be co-hosting Week 2 of our Back to School Bash Linky Series and Giveaway! This week is all about Meet the Teacher Ideas.

For me, the lead-up to this year's Meet the Teacher afternoon (which was last week) was more stressful than normal! Of course this year I decided to freshen up my classroom and redo a lot of my decor and organization...which was my own doing! However, on top of that, we had all-day, off-campus professional development the DAY BEFORE Meet the Teacher, and I couldn't get my little guy from the babysitter and back to school before the building closed for the evening...

...SO, I figured that if I just got to school earlier enough Thursday morning, with the help of my amazing mom, I could easily be done with my to-do list before Meet & Greet (that's what we call Meet the Teacher) started at 2:30. So I open my classroom door at 7:30 am, to find an entire bulletin board board, which had been carefully secured to the wall with extra tape 2 days before laying in a heap on the ground. A child had been added to my class list at the last moment...after I had printed everything with adorable fonts at home. No problem, I'll just create another name tag, etc. on my personal lap top, e-mail it to my school laptop (which has NO cute fonts), and print it from there. Oh we have NO internet connection, the entire school server is down, and there is NOT ONE working printer in our entire school building! Insert near panic attack! Somehow, almost everything got done, and Meet & Greet came and went without anyone knowing of all the little snafus along the way.

Here's a peek at my Meet & Greet:

Student Treats & What's on Their Desks:

So who doesn't love balloons?!? Each of my new owlets gets to take home an "owl" balloon from Meet & Greet! I order and pay for my balloons (in the colors of my classroom) a few days before Meet & Greet and pick them up a few hours before the big event. I then tape simple eyes and a beak to each balloon and VOILA! you've got a floating owl! Seeing a whole parliament of owl balloons floating across my room definitely fills my heart with joy! On each students desk, I place his/her name tag, basic student info cards for parents to complete, a gift Frisbee for students, which has an owl decal on the front and says "Thanks for flying in!" on the back. They also get a labeled lunch bag with a homework tag. This is their "HOOT about Me" bag, which is to be decorated and filled with pictures or small items which tell about the child. I ask these bags to come in on the first day of school, so that student have an opportunity to share about themselves!

On the Board:

On the board, I had to hand write a note with directions for the parents and students...it wasn't my first choice, but as I usually type up a message on my class blog, and we had no internet connection, I had to flex at the last moment. I also projected a copy, with visuals, of how I wanted students to unpack their school supplies--I didn't create this list, a teammate did--but I find it to be simple enough for my students to follow pretty independently, while their parents are filling out information. I also put my class Wish List on the board, and ask for parents to take an owl or two to donate to our class!

Here's a picture of pre-labeled supply bins for our community school supplies.

Here is a picture of how my table groups look with parent paperwork and student gifts and homework on them! I like to go with the whole "less is more" mentality!

All of my new little owlets got their name on an owl on our bulletin board tree before Meet & Greet (above) and on the body of our owl on the door (below)! I also pulled up my blog for parents to follow while they were in class--my desktops had sporadic internet connection! I included a QR code with our blog link, that parents could simply scan with their smart phones, too!

Finally, I signed up this year for the FREE APP Remind! It's a great system for sending text alerts to parents without them getting your personal cell number! I've never tried this system before...but I'm excited to give it a whirl this year! So, I downloaded the sign-up flier, copied it, and had it ready for my parents to take home!

Overall, it was a GREAT Meet & Greet! My room looked the best it ever has before, and I felt so pleased with how smoothly everything went! I look forward to reading everybody's awesome Meet the Teacher Ideas---so link-up with us this week!