You're the Room Parent!

The school year begins and you have either been asked (drafted) or have volunteered to be the room parent; the "go to" person for your child's class. Your responsibilities may be many or few, but classroom celebrations will most likely be your responsibility to organize and execute. So let's start off on the right foot.

Let's say you have 25 students in the class and you will be planning four celebrations for the year - Fall, Winter, Valentine's, and End of the Year. Divide the "work" by assigning 6 families per party - notice I have taken you out of the equation because you're the organizer! If you as the room parent establish this at the beginning of the year, families will be more supportive because you aren't consistently asking the same families again and again to bring or donate for every celebration. You may even ask for a $4 donation at the beginning of the school year to cover crafts. That's $1 per party per family!

Next design a plan for a classroom Fall themed party - this same plan could be used for the three remaining celebrations. Most schools allow for 45 minutes to a hour within the school day for celebrations. Having taught in the elementary grades for over 10 years, I assure you this is plenty of time. There is no need to overwhelm the children or the teacher. To begin:

• Verify with the teacher when and how long you may have for the celebration.
• Find 1 or 2 themed craft ideas - think 10 -15 minutes to complete.
• Find 1 or 2 themed games to play - think 10 - 15 minutes to play.
• Plan 1 healthy themed snack - you don't want to load the children up on sugar.
• Plan 1 sweet themed treat - remember the children have probably had lunch and a snack.
• Plan for 1 -2 helping parents
• Plan a simple themed science experiment - children had something "cool" to replicate and share at home.
• Plan a themed estimation jar - give away to child who came the closest.
• Plan "just in case" activities like a themed read aloud, jokes, or riddles.

Now that you have plan, it's time to have families sign up for the celebration they want. Once you see who signs up, ask those families for the supplies and goodies you will need to execute the plan. For example, you plan to make spooky eye candle holders. You need baby jars, black tissue, hole punches, black Sharpie markers, glue, and tea lights. Start at school with the teacher asking about black tissue paper, hole punches, glue, and black Sharpies. There's no need to ask families to provide supplies that are already at school. Next check your sign up list for those that wanted to provide food and those that wanted to provide supplies. Your food volunteers may bake the cookies, brownies or cupcakes. Your supply volunteers provide the baby food jars, black tissue paper, and tea lights. And if your were successful in getting $1 donations you will be able to get the supplies and goodies you didn't from your volunteers.

That's it! That's the plan.

Come back tomorrow when I post Fall themed crafts.