We do a welcome (back) to school Ice Cream Social that is very well attended every year...the PTO Board usually scoops, and provides info. (Granted this event is a natural for us since the Ben & Jerry's factory/visitor center is a 1/4 mile down the road and the ice cream is donated every year.) We hold this the first Friday after school starts and include a flyer about the event in the packet of info that goes home with the kids the first day of school.
We tried a "wine & cheese" event one evening last year and it didn't have the pulling power we'd hoped. I wouldn't say we wouldn't try something similar again...but the alcohol factor might do as much to make people uncomfortable as it does to make them at ease.
As for including the whole family....we consistently get 5 times more parents out to events that involve their kids than our best organized and advertised parent-only events.
We had a very successful family event a few weeks back at our son's elementary school. We held a Klutz Build a Book event at our school for existing families and invited our incoming families and their kids. It was well attended and everyone had a great time. We had about 30 or so new families come to the event. It was a great way to bring the upcoming kindergarten kids in with a fun activity which promoted literacy. Now they will have a little familiarity with the school when the return this fall. It also gave us an opportunity to recruit fresh new parents for our parent's club. We gave each family a summary of our parent group and a list of volunteer opportunities for next fall.
Our son is in 5th grade and he will be moving onto MS next year. (scary!!)He had as much fun as the younger kids.
The Build a Book kits came with our book fair and cost $6.49 each. The parent club paid half of the cost for our parents. New parents received one free. Pizza was donated by a local restaurant. We had some of our older siblings that need service credits for High School help out with the event but we really didn't need them. It was pretty painless.
In full disclosure, I've worked and ran school fundraisers for over a decade so I know how to promote an event but anyone could do this one.
Instead of wine and cheese, do iced tea, lemonade, cookies, and appetizers. I'm personally not big on the alcohol at school related functions. One time I organized a meeting with a "get to know each other" theme and I had everyone wear name tags that also included their # of children and their grade levels. That way people could find others who had children the same age. Anything to start conversations.
Yes, the school is doing a new family welcome breakfast for all the new parents and kids in May. Our Parent organization also has an ice cream social at our homecoming football game where lower, middle and upper school all get together. It is sooo much fun. We also have a book fair, pot luck dinner, and other events for families in the lower school. This is a new idea to have our parent association sponsor something just for the new parents after school starts to be able to talk to parents that have been there for a while and get to know other parents without having any interruptions. I like the wine and cheese idea but would love to have other ideas as well.
I like your idea of having a "buddy family" for new families and the adults only event is a nice idea too, but what about the kids? Are you doing something that will give them a chance to meet other children at your school? At our elementary we do a free cookout at the Open House that occurs about a week before school starts. It's a great way to get a vast majority of your families together, and the parents and the children get to meet and interact.
How great to do something to welcome all the new families! We're getting some new families next year as well due to boundary changes in the district. We're inviting all new families to our spring carnival. It's very little work for us because it's an event that's already planned, and it'll be fun for the new families because everyone gets to participate (not just the parents) and they'll get to meet current families as well as other new families. I don't think we'd have enough current families volunteering to buddy up with every new family, but if you do, that's a great idea. What we're planning to do is have a few parents act as new family liasons and be available to answer questions, show people around, etc.
