Our PTO is wanting to purchase a rear-projector screen for the gym/stage for Family Movie Nights. (It will also be used by the school for other purposes.) Does anyone have an opinion on these, as opposed to a "normal" front projector screen? Have you heard of the company "Da-Lite" that makes these screens? We hope to have feedback on whether the cost is worth it for a rear-proj. screen. Concerned about durability, repair cost, cost of replacement bulbs, etc. THANKS!

In Illinois some banks routinely provide a popcorn machine as a community service and let us use it for free. We can also rent one at a party or rental store, both readily available here in suburban Chicago. However renting one is not cost effective and the idea of popping it at home, or at a theatre, or in school with home-supplied air poppers, or with a microwave is much more appealing.

I would also agree that a LCD player with a laptop is perfectly fine, using a DVD. Again a suitable speaker system is a must! I personally asked that close captioning be turned on to help understand what they are saying, but some people find close captioning annoying.

Hello. We went the easy route. We have a very nice movie theatre in town. They pop the popcorn for us, place it in a very large sterile bag (garbage bag size) and we pick it up and place the popcorn in purchased popcorn containers from an online vendor. We use plastic gloves to package the items and then give to the kids. It is great. No mess and no electrical problems!!!

Sorry I wrote the first comment in the wrong spot. We hold our movie night in the gym We made a large screen our gym teacher and tech. teacher will set it up for us then we also have a tv in the lunch room for the parents who are working the consession stand can watch part of it. We use the schools TV
Michelle Herr

We just got done having a movie night things went pretty well, but how do we keep the kids from running around when the parents are right there? We paused the movie and announced please do not run around you are here to see a movie and we had a parent ask "what do you want them to do they are board?" Our reply was please leave then the movie nights we hold are free she was offended what can we do? We like to have one again it is a great fundraiser and most families do enjoy it. But the kids can get so loud.
Michelle Herr EEPA President

Please tell me how we go about getting the popcorn machine. We have always talked about doing Movie Night and never did it.

We had Family Read Aloud night in the past, now that was well attended by parents and students. A CBO and parents read stories, played games and arts and craft with the students.
thank you