Prepping for Open House

This year I am trying stations for the first time at Open House! I am very nervous about it, since I've seen it done with elementary schools, but not a lot at middle school. I'm also not sure how many minutes we have with each class, so I don't know if people will get through them all in time!

First they will sign-in (I have the sign in sheet and the "Involve-Mint" sign in a package with my parent questionnaire on TpT for free- grab it here)

This is from last year

Today I had students label a manila folder with their first and last name, and pick up the following handouts:

Scholastic Book Order Information

Syllabus

Interactive Student Notebook Information

Grading Information

Parent Questionnaire

Student Technology Sheet

I will have this by their "cubbies" where parents can take a look at the ISN's, and I'm going to place some projects and activities that we have done in the past on the table nearby.

This is where they have to go to various parts of the room to find their child's Six-Word Memoir, hopefully we will have enough time at this point!

 I purchased the Giving Tree handouts from Ms. W at Tales of Teaching in Heels, and loved them, but decided to put a little twist on it. I drew the giving tree and little boy on my whiteboard, and then found some apple post-its I had hiding in a drawer. I put things like glue, index cards, post-it notes, markers, etc.. on them. I hope it doesn't come off as tacky, (does it?) but most things are fairly cheap on there, and I don't want anyone to feel obligated to take it! I am definitely using the adorable thank you notes that came in the download, I love them!


Ok- I'm sneaking in a little close reading to this post (just a little)...

Today we made our keys that we will use all year for close reading. This was a fun process with one small hiccup. My 2nd period class made the key, but I have two 8th grade classes and only one ISN. So my fifth period class didn't get to create the key as much as review it, which didn't give them as much ownership. I think it still went ok, but I wanted both classes to be consistent.

I will be making these into .pdf posters tonight and will get them uploaded soon to TpT!
**I'm putting them in below!

Close Reading Non-Fiction Key

Close Reading Fiction Key

We didn't get as far as I wanted with the close reading because we were also doing the open house, but we'll catch up tomorrow! The top is 2nd period, and the bottom is 5th period.