One thing I offered to the classroom teachers in elementary was letting the classes do skits or showing off a special project during the school year. I got this idea from the other elementary across town and a teacher request. Unfortunately this was the only teacher that participated. But it did bring some parents in that seemed to be interested in what we were dicussing, but the majority of the people went straight to the gym. The skit was held after our meeting. The skits were written by the third grade students and they were just darling!
In KY our fourth grade has to incorporate Kentucky History in the cirriculum, so the other elementary show cased their KY History projects and sang songs about KY. I was touched. It made me proud to be from the Bluegrass State.
We usually have some sort of play during the school year. We have a large Vetran's Day program and usually a holiday play. This year we had a spring play about the history of our school and community. We had people that came from as far 100 miles away that had ties to the community just to see it.
Our school had family math and reading nights. They really brought the parents in with their kids. This year we are having movie nights. We cant charge for the movies, but we can charge for refreshments!
I would like ideas on more parent involvment in our activities. Our school is a K-8 and we have approximately 300 students. It seems like we have the same parents who volunteer their time and talents but I know they are getting burned out like me. Can anyone offer suggestions on how to get the other parents involved? Here are some of the events that we have throughout our school year but I would love to have more family school nights that do not cost the families anything.
1) Summer Celebration: Food, games, cake walk (didn't have a good turn out this year. It is always held in mid-June)
2) Fall Fundraiser: sell cookie dough and candy (this is our best money maker)
3) St. Nick Shopper: kids can come and shop for gifts that each cost $3.00
4) Magazine Sale
5) Family Ice Skating Night: (January was the 1st time that we tried this and we had 150 show up)
6) Spaghetti Dinner: The gentleman who made our special sauce is retiring from the job so it is left up to me to decide what to do about new sauce....Any Suggestions? We sell approx 1400 dinners
7) Book Fair and Craft Night: This was successful. We held a scholastic book fair and then also offered a free craft area for kids and parents to do together. We had 10 different stations and tried to make each craft around the theme of the book fair. We also had students Art that was made in art class posted on boards for the parents to view.
