6 Tips to Master Meet the Teacher Night (EP3)

 6 Tips to Master Meet the Teacher Night

Hey teacher friends, welcome to episode three, which is our third episode of the week to celebrate the launch of Elementary Math Chat!

Today we’re going to talk about how to make the most of your Meet the Teacher Night. Yours might be called Back-to-School Night or Open House. Whatever you call it, it is a big deal. This is the first time that a lot of them will be meeting you, and you want to make a good first impression. 

I know for me I can speak in front of kids all day long. But it’s different with adults. It can be intimidating to speak in front of a whole room of parents who are meeting you for the first time. My approach to dealing with my nerves was always to try and be as prepared as possible. The more prepared I was, the more confident I felt, and then I didn’t have to think so much about what I was doing.

I also made sure to smile throughout the presentation, because number one, that just lightens the mood a little bit. But number two, it kind of hid the fact that I was nervous in the first place because I didn’t want parents to think I was nervous. So, don’t forget to smile and try your best to have a little fun.

Another common feeling is not knowing exactly what to cover in the limited time that you have, especially if this is your first time hosting a back-to-school event and you’re starting from scratch. I know during my last few years, we only had 30 minutes with parents. So, we really had to narrow it down.

It can be a struggle to decide what stays and what goes because you have so much information you want to cover, and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. I’m going to share the essentials that I think you have to include in your Meet the Teacher Night along with how to deal with the other information that’s important, but you just don’t have time to fit in.

Let’s start with why this day is so important. Never again will you have the undivided attention of all of your parents in one room. You have this amazing opportunity, so you want to take full advantage of this.

With that in mind, my first tip for your Meet the Teacher Night is to think about the common questions or concerns you get from parents during those first few weeks of school. Think about those and address them in your presentation. This will help you later avoid being bombarded with emails.

For example, do you get a lot of questions about homework? Or how they can help at home? Or do parents ask how they can volunteer or help in the classroom? Brainstorm these questions with your team and then address them in your presentation.

An example of when I did this was when our math standards shifted to Common Core, and when parents started seeing these strange new strategies their children were bringing home, some of them had a few concerns. That might be an understatement. If you were teaching during that time, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was all over social media. They were like, what the heck is this new math? And what are you doing to our children?

Because I knew there were most likely some skeptics in the room, I wanted to address this and clear up any misconceptions from the get-go. So, I took the time to show parents how we taught two-digit multiplication. I showed the different strategies their child would learn, and I explained why we began with the area model and then moved to the partial product method, and eventually to the algorithm.

I reassured them that we would always end with the algorithm, which is the way they were taught. You know, we want them to solve it in the most efficient way. But that method isn’t always the right fit for students. So, why not let them choose a strategy that works best for them? If they don’t want to do the algorithm, they don’t have to in fourth grade. They have other choices. They can save that for fifth grade.

Once I explained the progression from one strategy to the next, I saw a lot of heads nodding, and I actually heard feedback from parents about how much they appreciated this explanation.

Moving on to tip number two. My second tip for your Meet the Teacher Night is to give parents a sneak peek into what their child will be working on in class. If you use interactive notebooks, this is a great opportunity to show them an example, especially since these don’t ever really come home. So, parents don’t get to see them until the last day of school, if they are brought home.

So, either show them your teacher copy or if you can, ask a few of your students to donate their notebooks to the classroom at the end of the year. Either way, take a few pictures of these notebooks and put them in your presentation so parents can see the components.

I did the same thing for my science notebooks, and it really helps parents envision what their child will be doing. I also got a lot of positive feedback from this.

Also, if there is a big project students complete in your grade, definitely take a minute or two to not only discuss these projects but include pictures when possible. This one is important because parents tend to help out with projects at home. So, giving them a heads-up and showing examples is really nice. The neat thing is parents will more than likely share their excitement with their kids when they get home, so that’s a bonus.

My third tip for your Meet the Teacher Night, if something can be easily understood over a newsletter, or within a handout you can provide, then save it for that. Don’t spend time going over these things during your presentation.

When parents entered my classroom, I had a handout ready for them that included things like our daily schedule, my contact info, my teacher bio, and a few important dates. At that point, we had already scheduled field trips, so we put those on there. We also included a brief overview of what they would be learning in fourth grade. So, make sure you have something similar that covers this important information. That way, you don’t have to spend time discussing it.

My fourth tip for Meet the Teacher Night is to give parents tips on how they can help at home. You’re more than likely going to be asked these questions throughout the year. So, think about the areas that a lot of students struggle with in your grade level. It might be different from previous grade levels.

If it is completing homework, then suggest parents check over their child’s homework, especially in the beginning. But if they see their child is keeping up with work and understanding concepts, then they can back off a little bit.

If it’s staying organized, suggest parents check their child’s binder once a week. Again, if they find their child is able to stay organized without their help, then they only really need to check in periodically.

If it’s a specific unit in math that’s more challenging, prepare them that their child may need more help during that time. You don’t want to scare them, but you do want to prepare them.

If it’s preparing for tests, give them suggestions for how they can help at home. This was something I always addressed with parents, because fourth grade was the year that many of them had to study for the first time, and they don’t necessarily know how to do that without our help.

I even showed parents a sample of the Chapter Review that we completed in class and a sample of the test side-by-side. That way, they could see how similar they were. If students understood the questions in the Chapter Review, they would do well on the test.

The reason I did all of this was because I wanted them to see that going through these Chapter Reviews is the best way to help their child prepare for tests. Something really good that came out of this was a lot of students would come back and say that their parents would use the Chapter Review questions, and they would make them a new review, and that was something I told parents that they could do. You know, it’s easy, you just have to change the numbers and you have a whole new set of questions to review. So, I thought that was really cool.

All right, moving on to tip number five. My fifth tip for your Meet the Teacher Night is to discuss your behavior system. We sent behavior notes with graded papers every Monday. I even showed them an example of this behavior note. I wanted them to know exactly what it looked like, what it included, and where they would have to sign their name. 

I also wanted parents to know that if their child came home with a behavior mark, they had received multiple prompts and multiple reminders before that mark was made. So, that puts a little context behind a mark coming home. 

Another important topic I discussed with parents was the reason why we took off time from recess. Yes, it was a consequence. But it also allowed us time to discuss the reason behind their behavior choice. We just didn’t have the time to do that in the classroom, and that’s the main reason why we took time off of their recess.

I also wanted them to know that their child should never come home and say they have no idea why they got a mark because I always talk to them about it. This is something I also tried to make really clear to students because I knew their parents would get their weekly note, and they would want to ask their child why they were given a behavior mark. So, it was important for me that every single student understood why they were getting a behavior mark. So, that’s what we discussed during recess.

Now, some parents might not be happy about you taking minutes off of recess, but if they understand the reason behind it, I think they’ll be more likely to support you. I always felt that support. But again, I think it’s because I explained it during this Meet the Teacher Night.

I also made sure to share that while I did have high expectations for students, I understood they would make mistakes, and I would give them grace. Students aren’t perfect, teachers aren’t perfect, and if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s to not sweat the small stuff. Everybody deserves a second chance. We are all just doing the best we can. Isn’t that the truth?

My sixth and final tip for your Meet the Teacher Night is to reinforce the importance of reading your newsletter and make sure you are not including too much in your newsletter. We do not want to overwhelm parents. We want them to read our newsletters because they are such an important way to stay connected with what’s going on in school.

I also suggested that they check the newsletter and check in with their child before sending me an email with a question. I don’t say this to be harsh, but many times one of those two resources would have their answer and would get their question answered much faster. 

However, I made sure they understood that if they still needed my help, maybe it was a sensitive topic that couldn’t be discussed with their child, they could always contact me. But you know, we want to empower our students to be part of the home-school connection, and this is a great way to do so.

So, those are my six tips for your Meet the Teacher Night. Let’s do a quick recap before we get to today’s teaching tip of the week.

Tip number one: Address common questions and concerns that you get during the first few weeks of school.

Tip number two: Include pictures of notebooks or projects students will work on.

Tip number three: Provide a handout parents can take home with information that is easily understood.

Tip number four: Tell parents how they can help at home.

Tip number five: Discuss your behavior system and how you will communicate this with them.

Tip number six: Reinforce the importance of reading your newsletter.

You know, they say that you only get one chance to make a first impression. So, hopefully, these tips help you make it a good one.

All right, well, that takes us to today’s teaching tip of the week. This one is one of my favorite community-building activities that you can use the first week of school, and it is called Feelings About Math.

To begin, you simply just have to draw a word web on the board, and then on the inside, write the phrase Feelings About Math. Then, ask your students how they feel about math. These can be positive feelings. They can be negative feelings. You want them to be honest with how they feel.

You might need to give them prompts or examples, but for the most part, my students were pretty willing and able to share their feelings on their own. Now, I made it clear to them that I would not be offended if they had negative feelings. I mean, I was only their math teacher for like two days at that point. I really wanted them to be honest.

You’ll probably have students who say things like, I love math. It’s my favorite subject. It’s fun. It’s challenging in a good way. But you’ll also have students say that it’s hard. It can be boring. I struggle with math. It’s frustrating. They might feel a little vulnerable sharing, but you want them to be honest, and just kind of lay it all out there.

So, as they shared their ideas with me, I added them to the word web. And let me tell you, they did not hold back. Students who did not like math and who struggled with it were very vocal in sharing that.

What this did is it showed me pretty early on who lacked confidence, and that way I could target those students from the beginning. On the other hand, this also showed me who were going to be my leaders, and who could help others who were struggling.

After they finished sharing their feelings, I then went through and circled all of the positive words, and I told them that my hope for the year was that all of the positive feelings would remain on the list, and all of the negative feelings would slowly go away. You know, it’s not going to happen overnight. But hopefully, with a lot of work and a positive mindset, we will get there.

We then talked about the importance of having a positive mindset, and how that could affect how they felt about math. I ended the discussion by showing the Class Dojo video on growth mindset. I’ll link that in the show notes. It is such a cute video, and it’s the perfect way to wrap up this conversation.

This activity always ended up being a really honest and meaningful discussion, and it was a great way to kick off things with a new group of students. And so, I hope you give it a try, and I hope it does the exact same thing for you.

Well, friends, that is all for today’s episode. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I will see you next Tuesday for episode four of our back-to-school series where I will share all that I learned from my year of subbing, and I know some of you are starting school this week. So, if that is you, I wish you all the best!