Planning your Meet the Teacher Day

Having a Meet the Teacher Day can really get the school year off to a great start.

Meet the Teacher Day is a simple way to invite your students and their families to come see the school and also to meet you. This day doesn’t have to be complicated, extravagant, or over the top. In fact, we keep our day about as simple as you can get. lLet me show you exactly what we do for our Meet the Teacher Day.

Planning the Day

We plan our Meet the Teacher Day to fall the week before school begins. This gives us time to have our classroom pretty much ready for the first day of school. There are always more things to do, but the classroom feels first-day ready. Things like; children’s names are up on cubbies, a simple sign-in process is ready, and the centers are set up and ready to go.

We plan our day like an Open House. The parents are invited to bring their child during a 2 hour time span to meet the teacher, explore the classroom, play a little bit, and leave when they feel ready. The teachers stay present in the experience by talking with parents and even hopping down on the floor to play with the children at times.

Have Something Fun to Do

To give the parents a little help, we provide the parents with a scavenger hunt.  The hunt is geared towards helping the students get acquainted with the school. To prepare the scavenger hunt, we create a picture chart of things the children can look for around the classroom like scissors, play dough, blocks, light table, markers, and so on. As the children find each item, they can check it off the list. The scavenger hunt gives the children and parents their first chance to get familiar with a few of the things they will get to play with when they come back to preschool on their very first day.

Provide A Community Project

We also like to set up a community project. We set out a large blank canvas with paint and invite the children (and parents) to stop by and add some paint to the canvas. The community paint canvas gives the teachers a great opportunity to sit down together with the children to talk and paint. After the children leave, we keep their community painting and hang it up on the wall so the children can see it when they come back to school the very first day.

Send Home a Note

By the time Meet the Teacher Day rolls around, we have already sent out the information packets for the parents to fill out. However, at Meet the Teacher Day we will hand out a sheet that talks more about the teachers along with a photo of each teacher. We like to include this special note on a separate page so that the parents can hang this sheet on the wall at home. Having information about the teachers along with a photo allows the children to get more familiar with who their teachers are – before the first day of preschool!

Keep it Simple

Meet the Teacher Day helps everyone to relax a little bit before the “real” first day of school. We purposely keep the day very simple and open-ended so that there is no pressure on the teacher, children, or the parents to do anything but spend a little time getting to know each other and getting to know the classroom.

Remove the Mystery

For the teachers, everything involving going back to preschool is familiar except meeting the parents and the kids. For the parents and kids, EVERYTHING feels like a mystery. A chance for everyone to spend time together in the classroom helps remove some of the mystery. Removing some of that mystery surrounding the first day of school is a good thing for young children, the parents, and for you!

More Ideas for Meet the Teacher Day!

The Back to School Discover conference is right around the corner (July 24th, 2019) and throughout the conference you will hear lots of different ways to structure your Meet the Teacher Day as well as things to do during your time with the families. The ideas these presenters provide throughout the conference are simply incredible! If you haven’t registered yet, be sure to do so today! You will be so glad you did.

Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

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