Thread: Open House in the middle of the Year!

Ask your colleagues what they are doing. Those that have been there for several years probably have a well-organized routine.

And ask your principal directly!


Here's one idea:

Have your students compile a portfolio of work samples representative of what they've learned so far. Based on that work sample, have them identify strengths and write themselves some goals. When their parents come to open house, the student can lead them to their desk, go through their folder, discuss the work, the strengths, and the goals, and add any goals the parents think need to be addressed. Make refreshments available; stand at the door to greet them and to thank them for coming on their way out.

This requires prep work and practice time in class ahead of time!

Unfortunately, none of the teachers know what to do either. This is our first Open House at our small little charter school. We have one teacher per grade (one K teacher, one 2nd grade, etc.). AND our principal was never a teacher himself and can only tell us that he wants the parents to be happy and excited about Open House.

I think I would make sure there is lots of art or written work on the bulletin boards, a few select pieces on each desk--not necessarily the same ones on each desk but a representation of what's going on in the class, an example of a dayplan on the chart stand, put out a few of the learning centres and leave it at that. If the parents have any questions, they can ask. Mostly what the parents want to see is what's going on in the classroom.

In May, the Kindergarten teachers have to show off their classrooms for the incoming K parents. It's an Open House of sorts and this is basically what we do.

I'm not a teacher yet, but I can tell you what my elementary school did for open houses.

We always had a lot of projects hanging up around the classroom, and some of the teachers did special projects just for open house-- one interesting one that I remember was that they had their students trace two outlines of each other onto brown paper, decorate the outlines to look like their back and front and then staple the two sides together, stuffing them with newspaper. The dummy students would be sitting at their desk for open house, so it would be like the parents were walking into an in-session class. Students would be excited to show their parents around the classroom, and some teachers had the students put extra completed work in folders on top of their desks so their parents could look through more of what they had done.

Another teacher, in addition to some of the other ideas, would have all of the classroom computers up and running so the students could show their parents some of the things that they can do on the computers, and they had a tv with a vcr playing recent in-class presentations that the kids had done.

It was also a great time to have parents sign up to volunteer for snacks, field trips or anything else that needed to be done. Students could show their parents around the school to see where they had gym, art class, music, etc.

At our school, arrival of the parents was kind of staggered, so the teachers didn't have to make a general presentation or anything. The teachers would walk around the classroom and chat with the parents, answering any questions that they had.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your first open house!