We do a ton of things but the biggest hits were our Dr. Seuss Night on 2 March and our Variety shows...really, really fun and tons of participants...we did a poster contest "Oh the places you go with Dr. Seuss...and parents were really just itching to get their children out after the winter months....
Patti I forgot one event that has little cost...a staff versus parent volleyball match. Lots of fun and bragging rights afterwards. last year we started having a pizza party afterwards, lots of fun! Other things we do for fun nights, Craft Night, Fall Festival, Holiday Shop/Crafts, Disco night, Sockhop night, Spring Fling (carnival type night), movie night...it depends how big you make it on what it costs, we do ours all free so we make no money on them. It is hard to do that but the turnout is amazing.
Kelly what is cinco de mayo night? please share
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Patti,
We are very proud of the family fun nights we have planned this year.
Sept.- Ice Cream Social... Ice cream sundaes and plenty of time to get to know one another!
Oct.- Fall Fun Night... Pumpkin painting, costume contests, caramal apple making... all of these are inexpensive activities and a lot of the materials are donated from our local farmers.
Nov.- Pajama Night... Bedtime stories read by prominent members of the community, waffles and sausage for dinner, lots of door prizes... we may add a pajama contest this year.
Jan.- Craft Night... last year, we did picture frames, pet rocks, and ceramic tiles... I don't know waht we'll do this year yet but we have lots of ideas brewing!
Feb.- IT'S A JUNGLE IN HERE! Carnival... Our second carnival... it's goinf to be bigger and better than last year!
Mar.- Chuck E. Cheese Night... This is great! Kids get to play, adults get to talk, and you make some cash for the PTO!
Apr.- Student Vs. Teacher Triathalon... Round 1: Eating Contest. Round 2: Basketball game. Round 3: Game show like final round.
May- Cinco De Mayo Night
Hope this gives you some ideas!
Kelley
Madison PTO
Mount Vernon, WA
We have family swim night at the YMCA. They charge us $150. for 2 1/2 hours of swimming and then we get the party room for 1 hour. We order in pizza, soda and make cupcakes.
This is one of our biggest events because we hold it in January.
In February we bring in a magician, serve hot chocolate and cookies. October and March are family crafts, serve punch and theme related desserts. November and April are bingo nights, which include hot dogs, popcorn(I have both machines so we don't pay for rentals)chips, drinks and desserts. December is movie day, we rent a local movie theater.
patti you mentioned Earth Day and a school in our district does wonderful with this, they have all sorts of organizations come in. The kids learn about birds, wood, making a bird house, watching a man carve out a canoe, seeing eye dogs, etc. Lots of fun!
Now you also mentioned low cost events, one event that we do is Read Across America Week based on Dr. Seuss's birthday (march3) we invite guest readers from local sports teams, tv personalities, government officials, a fire fighter, police man, mailman, etc. Each class gets a guest reader sometime during the week. We also do a theme week based on books by Dr. Seuss (Hat day...500 hats for bartholomew cubbins, sock day...fox in socks, Wacky Wednesday based on the book by the same title) kids and staff get into the different days. We also do a used book exchange , and a guessing contest (how many books in the library, something related to books). Each student gets a Dr Seuss Pencil and eraser. Total cost is like $175.00. You could skip the pencils and still have fun with it.
You could do a Hobby Night and have parent with unique hobbies come in and share their hobby. At Holiday time you could do a Holiday around the Worlds night, have different cultures share activities that they use to celebrate their holidays. Alot of community groups are more than eager to share!
We do a Family craft Night that is pretty inexpensive, you would be surprised at who ahs what laying around! A Movie night would also be another low cost event. If you look through the forum here you will find lots..good luck!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
I am scheduling a few events for our school and we want to do 3 Family Nights this year and I need to know what is involved so there are little to no surprises. I will be ordering the Family Night Kits but I have no idea what exactly I will receive as this is new for us. Suggestions on inexpensive games or activities would be great as we are not a wealthy community. We will be doing a Earth / Wildlife Day in April, I expect it will be rather inexpensive as we are doing a movie with a few small activities and refreshments. I'd appreciate any and all advice and suggestions.
