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Throwback Thursday: Open House

It’s Thursday!  I promised to have a “throwback” on Thursdays to showcase some of my favorite and most popular posts from Smiling In Second Grade.  My Open House post is by far my most popular!  On September 8 of last year, I showcased the activities I did to get ready for parents to come to Open House.  Once you get to the bottom you’ll see my latest update to this post!
Thursday night was Open House, so I wanted to share some  a lot of  pictures!  I borrowed a LOT of these ideas from fellow bloggers and Pinterest.  I will share where I got my inspiration from, although it might not be the original source.
Welcome to Open House!
This is the entrance to my room on Open House night.
The banner came from The School Supply Addict for free!  My resource teacher told me I should keep it up all year, what do you think?
This was out in the hallway:

The students created flowers were all of their favorite things in them.  I created the poster with Tagxedo.  Our school mascot is the SuperStar and it has all the kids names in it!
We created a Who Am I board:
I got this bulletin board idea from Surfing Through Second.
Surfin' Through Second
The students wrote a few clues about themselves and then drew a picture:
Underneath the flap, I pasted a picture of the student holding their name:
{another teacher told me the pictures looked like mug shots – oops!}
The kids had the best time making their parents guess which one was theirs.
Check out my information table!
My magnets with contact information from VistaPrint were a big hit!
Open House is always kind of rushed and parents are coming and going all night, so I don’t really have an opportunity to make a presentation so I put all my information into a brochure for parents to take:
The apples on the table came from Mrs. Terhune’s First Grade.  Here is my version:
The bookmarks idea came from A Place Called Kindergarten.  Here are mine:

Clipart by Scrappin Doodles
I had the students write letters to their parents to leave on their desks:
This came from The Teacher Wife and it was also free!  I was so glad that I had it, because my students desperately needed the prompts this year.  My original idea was just to write a letter from scratch but that wasn’t going to happen!
I thought about leaving a paper for parents to write back to their child, but most students come with their parents so I decided it wasn’t worth it.
**UPDATE**
I’ve created two different Open House packets for your classroom! The first one is just the basics.  It has everything you need for a successful open house (or meet the teacher night) for any grade!  Click the picture to grab your Open House: The Basics pack.
Here are a few pictures that showcase {a few} of the items included in this pack!

Your other option is for you owl-lovers out there!   Open House is a Hoot is my owl-themed packet!  Click on the pictures to check it out!

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