Rocking the Open House

Wednesday, September 7th is our annual open house and the schedule is as follows:

So, what do we do with those parents for 15 minutes? I know that as a newer teacher I nervously talked at light speed from bell to bell about all the various course expectations, classroom rules, etc. that I thought the parents needed to know in detail. Looking back on it now, it was likely unbelievably boring (and maybe even a little hard to stay awake after a full day of work for most parents).

Last year I attended an open house for the first time as a parent and it really got me thinking about my own practices. Going into the classroom, I wanted to get a sense of what a typical day was for my child. What did she see? With whom did she work? Who was this adult interacting with her every day??

Keeping these questions in mind, I changed some of what I did in class. I slowed down, I didn’t read my syllabus/course expectations, and I added more interactive activities for the parents. I made it my goal for them to get to know my personality a little better so that we could start a positive relationship for the rest of the year.

One of the activities I did was to give them a small card and ask them to tell me something about their student. And it was awesome. The parents wrote me so many different things like “Push him. He needs it.” and “She’s afraid to speak in front of the class, but is great in small groups.” and “He really wants to tutor other students this year.” It was a nice way for me to connect with my students through their families’s eyes. It is definitely something that I will do again this year at open house.

When thinking about this blog post, I asked other people for their ideas.

+Michelle Marconi asks her students’ families to write a note to their students and then she gives them the note during the next class period. She said that she did this in her daughter’s class and she’s always so happy to get the note and know that Michelle was thinking about her.

+Martha Nava shows her students’ families their artwork. While it is easier for her as an art teacher to do this, it’s still a great idea!

+Ralph Moczydlowski is planning on playing Kahoot! with the families to get them engaged in the information. Who doesn't love Kahoot?

+Jason English has seen quite a few open houses and done activities including, showing videos of students in action, giving a quiz with handheld response devices, and holding a mini-engineering contest (paper rockets - with a prize for the winner!). One of the funniest ideas is the “Inertia Club”. Read about it in Jason’s own words:

Without going into all the details, I induct the parents into the inertia club (something their students will do later in the month) and give them a membership card.  They sign the card as though they were in high school (with their maiden name and a date from the past) and rough up the card to make it look old.  In a few weeks, student do their own inertia club activity and earn their own card.  I tell them to bring the card home and have their parents sign it to say they've seen it.  At this point, parents will pull their own "old" inertia club card out of their wallet or high school yearbook and have a little fun with their child. Parents love to have fun with their kids and it gives them a little taste of my personality while also sparking discussion about physics concepts in the weeks ahead. Wish I could take credit for the idea, but I can't.  I got it from a teacher at New Trier.

Edutopia has another interesting read on facilitating a successful open house. Actually just doing a search of “open house ideas” yielded a plethora of ideas from different teachers. For me, it was a good time to think a little bit more in depth about a night to which I hadn’t always given a lot of forward thought.  

What are other ideas that you have? Please post them in the comments section! Sharing is caring!