In terms of free, our Parent-Teacher League hosts grade level activities. For grades K-3, students, siblings and parents are invited: Kindergarten is a puppet show (bring bag or take-out supper), 1st grade is a decorate-your-own-Halloween-tshirt/sweatshirt with door prizes, and 2nd and 3rd are Bingo games with bought and donated prizes and door prize. (Grade 4 has an afterschool pizza party/Bingo - no parents/no siblings and Grade 5 has an evening roller skating party at a nearby rink with buses and chaperones provided by the Parent-Teacher League.) We have other Family Activity Nights that are "pay for"...
Our school does a holiday craft night, the first Friday in December, at no cost to the students. We buy the crafts from Oriental Trading company and serve cider, hot chocolate and donuts.
At Open House and Parent-Teacher conferences we serve cookies and drinks. If we don't have fountian drinks we just buy 2 liters. For the conferences we probably have less than 150 people to show up.
Our FRC hosts Fall Into Reading and Spring into Math. The Fall into Reading is a program set up to show parents how our reading program works, and gives tips on how parents can encourage reading at home. They serve pizza and drinks. Spring into Math is festival type games that are set up that involve Math. A sticker card are given to the kids. When their sticker card is full they get ice cream. Parents too.
As a PTA we stick to a 3/1 rule. For every fundraiser we need to do 3 events at no cost to families. Many of our events are free to get into, but then we may have a raffle table, sell t-shirts or plants, pictures w/ santa etc. So families can enjoy all crafts, entertainment for free but we can still raise some cash through the other things. And no one HAS to buy anything.
All our events are free. We do 2 catalog fundraisers (same company) one in the Fall and one in the Spring. Last year, we also did a cookie dough sale.
Fall Fun Night - kids painted pumpkins, games - prize was just stickers, bat magnet craft, and we served doughnuts and cider
Inliving Science assembly,during school hours.
Spring Fun Night - was a sock-hop. We had a D.J., hot dogs and cotton candy. The hot dog machine and cotton candy machine & supplies were dontated by our catalog company. We had a hula - hoop contest where the hula hoop was the prize ($1 store) A bubble blowing contest and the prize was a pack of bubble gum. We had jacks and pick up stix out for kids to learn how to play.
Field Day during school hours. Each grade level came out for an hour. We had 18 events such as bowling, soccer, scooter obstacle course, long jump. Our catalog company also donated some carnival games.
Next year, I am hoping to add a Back to School event and either 1 or 2 reading/math/science nights for families. Our PTO was MIA for a couple of years so we had to start off slow last year.
We only spent a couple hundred dollars on each event but the kids and parents had a blast.
What events to you host that are at no cost to parents?
Last year our PTO was very successful in fundraising. We held several family events and a few fundraisers, but all our events were are some cost to parents.
I am chairing the Open House/Ice Cream Social this fall, which at our school is usually a "pay for ice cream" event. This year I would rather have it "donation only". I cant get into the school to get the "files" on past events to know how much I can expect to spend. I'll also ask for local business to donate.
I was also wondering what other schools do as "free events. I'm hoping to plan a "donuts with dads" this year and possibly 1 other event.
