Running a Smooth Back to School Night

You guys...seriously. School has begun?! We've been in for 3 days now and it has been a blast (but so, so exhausting). I'm still trying to get into a groove for this year but I will tell you about one thing that has gone smoothly this year...Back to School Night! My night went off without a hitch because I made sure that I was incredibly organized and ready for the night! I'm going to share a peek at my night with you and maybe you can share some tips from your night with me!

I'm going to walk you through my room as if you were a parent of one of my students. Ready?? Okay!

I have my Back to School Night set up in stations and I LOVE it!! It frees me up big time so that I'm able to meet children and talk to parents who have finished working through my stations.

First up...Sign in! I put a sign-in sheet at Station 1 so that I know who came and so I have parent email addresses in one place!

Next is Station 2!

At this station, parents pick up their child's information folder. Our school requires that parents sign a form saying that they have received all the forms so that is what the sign-in sheet is at this station.

Now let me give you a rundown on my folders. First of all, they took almost no time at all to put together! I seriously sat down one Saturday night while watching a movie with Mr. Cain and got them done in no time!

First, I glued all the covers onto the folders.

Next, I laid all the papers that go into the folder out on my floor (yikes, that's a lot!).

Then, I stuffed the pages by category. One side is for forms that have to be signed and returned. The other side has pages that are informational and can stay at home.  I put a 'Forms to Return' checklist on the 'Sign and Return' side so that parents can mark off all the forms that they have completed.

Last, I stuffed a business card into the folders that had each teacher's email address and our class website address!

Now, luckily, I was super prepared and made an extra folder just in case a new student came the night of Back to School night. Well, I didn't get a new student that night but I did have one parent walk off with another student's folder (even though they had their names right on the cover :P), so I had to give the folder-less student's parents the back-up folder so his parents could get started on his forms. Always be prepared, y'all!!

While I was stuffing folders, my dog Maggie got bored and decided to go to sleep. 

Isn't she adorable?!

Okay back to the stations... Station 3 is a station where parents tell me how their kiddos will be getting home on the first day of school and throughout the year! This station is super important so I make sure that I'm hanging out near this station so I know how all my students will be getting home.

Station 4 is a station where parents fill out an information card about their student. I don't let parents take these home because this is information that we will need right away. I put a bunch of pens at the station and make sure there are plenty of chairs around the table so that many parents can fill out forms at one time.

Station 5 is a fun station! It's our class wish list! Here I post things that we need for our classroom so that parents can donate supplies if they wish to. I ask for things like disinfecting wipes, markers, post-its, and other fun things we'll use throughout the year. I made cards for this station that are adorable but ran out of time to print and cut them so I just used apple post-its instead :) The key to teaching is flexibility, right?!

Station 6 is my supply drop-off zone. Many students bring their supplies to school on Back to School night so I had to have a way to sort and organize their supplies. I got bins and milk crates out and labeled each one using my supply label tents. I also left 2 permanent markers at the station so that parents and students could label supplies. I also had a checklist at the station so that parents could mark-off everything that their student brought.

Finally, after parents worked through all the stations, I had a PowerPoint presentation rolling on my SmartBoard so that my students and their parents could learn some important information about our classroom!

Well, there you have it! My Back to School night was so stress-free and smooth! It was great! I had plenty of time to interact with students and parents and I spent no time explaining to parents what I needed from them throughout the night!

If you are interested, you can purchase my Chevron Back to School Night Pack from Teachers Pay Teachers! It includes all the things used at my Back to School Night (plus more)! I included signs, forms, PowerPoint presentations, labels, and so much more! It is fabulous! But maybe I'm biased ;) Click the pic below to check out the preview for my pack!

I hope you found some useful information in this post! I'd love to hear about your tips and tricks for managing Back to School Night!