Our school just hosted it's 2nd annual Celebration Night.
Last year the PTO purchased 100 tshirts for the staff to wear during the day to promote the event and then be easy to recognize in the evening. The shirts are lime greem with Celebrate on the front. (also the PTO website address for a plug)
This year the PTO scheduled the reward assembly for fundraiser participants during the day of Celebration Night. They were the carnival inflatables. Kids who participated in reaching our fundraising goal got to go on the equipment during their PE class. At night we charged $1 per ticket for each ride! What a night! We sold over 550 tickets!!
The tech dept did the organization for the rest. It is to show case what the kids have been working on.
The PTO was asked to provide refreshments again this year. We bought 800 3 inch cookies and provided water, coffee and juice: free.
We also had a Spirit Wear table at the front entrance and sold over 100 tshirts! Great way to encourage Spririt! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Also the school band played several songs in the main hall way through out the 2 hour event. Also some dance routines by students. A lot of free entertainment!
Our school not the PTA runs/ organizes the Fall and end of year School Open Houses, not much in the way activities (trying to change that now that the Auditorium has been redone)
Maybe a class slideshow, refreshments or skits by a few students
<font size=""1""><font color="#"black"">Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. </font></font><br /><br><font color="#"gray"">~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus</font><br /><br><font color="#"blue""><font size=""1"">The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is...
We have done root beer floats before, but because Open House always seemed to be scheduled during the dinner hour, a few years ago we started serving supper. We have done pizza by the slice, and this year did hot dogs and chips. You can charge for the food(we usually just covered our cost with maybe $200 profit)but this year we did it all for free. It encourages people to hang around and chat and get to know the other families.
Thank you all so much for all of your imput. It has been very helpful. I think for the first year we'll keep it pretty low-key and get a feel for it. Thanks bunches
Jenn
An Ice Cream Social is easy and inexpensive to put together.
Our Kindergarten teacher and Principal give a tour of our school, differant groups (Parent Group, Cub Scouts, etc...) have a table set up for information. Very informal.
I recall in years past, the school (not really the PTO) organized some activities for Open House. But they were class/student driven and designed to sort of show off what it would be like going to school there.
Our school is divided into 4 wings separated more or less gradewise. There would be one or two activities in each wing. It might be a craft, or a little play, story time, a game, etc. Something that would have been an age appropriate activity for that wing.
There may have also been some musical presentations on the stage. The gym and library were open. Some minor concessions were served. I think we probably started in the cafteria/stage area with announcements from the principal and the musical presentation. Then everyone was released to roam the school and visit all the classrooms and activity stations.
Note - our school also has a carnival/Spring Fling type event in late spring. That's a school-wide family event, but they often try to pass the word to area pre-schools so that families of next year's kindergarteners can come also.
