Open House

Sunday, May 17, 2015

This past week we had our big night, Open House! Students worked so hard....here is a peek at our American Revolution themed room!  I will be blogging more in depth later about individual projects, but here is what our room looked like!
Today I wanted to write a little bit about how I STRUCTURE Open House.  I do not just let the kids come in, walk around, and leave.  OH NO!! I have a few tricks up my sleeve to keep not only the kids busy, but the parents busy as well!  The first thing I do when my students and parents walk in to the room is hand them an agenda.  This tells the students everything they need to do during the night.
The first thing on the list tells the students to SHOW OFF THEIR WORK!!! They take their parents around and I tell them they need to read/explain the work to their parents.  We even practice this in class so the kids know how to do this. Here is a sample of some of the awesome work the kids did!
Here is some more of the student's work.  Notice the borders? I give the KIDS a half of a piece of stationary and the kids cut out rectangles and glue it around the black paper.  This looks GREAT as a border and I do not need to worry about backing the kids work.  It literally takes them a few minutes to do and saves me a LOT of time!!! 
Next, the students and I created an "ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER" quiz with everything that we had learned about the American Revolution.  The kids tested their parents to see if they were smarter than a 5th grader.  This was SO much fun for the students (although some of the parents were looking up answers on their phones!!!!)  
Finally, the parents can NOT leave Open House without writing a compliment for their child on the BRAG WALL!  This is something that is so special.  I love seeing all the positive notes form the parents about their work.  I literally CRIED reading them all, they were so sweet!
What tricks or tips do you have for Open House?




6 comments:

  1. You are amazing!!! Love the Brag Wall. I have a checklist for my students to complete as they show their parents around and explain what we have learned. We also practice the morning of open house so we are ready for the big night. :)

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  2. I teach US History and was thinking about trying to incorporate more foldables, etc. Would you be willing to share what you have your kids do? It looks great - and you can tell they must have been completely engaged in all the learning activities.
    Thanks!
    Janie
    janiefahey@gmail.com
    Are We There Yet?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I will be sharing all of these ideas in my blog this summer...stay tuned!!! :)

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  3. Your Open House looked great! I love the brag wall idea! Do you have that file to share? Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. Yes Diana, I will be sharing this this summer so you can use it for next year....stay tuned!!! :-)

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