On this week’s mini-episode, I want to share my top strategy for taking the pressure off you while delivering a great experience for parents on back-to-school night, stations.

Back-to-school night, like the first day of school, can be a stressful time. You’re trying to get a lot of information across quickly, and it can feel like the only way to get that accomplished is by talking fast and furiously for the eight or so minutes you have with your rapidly moving parents.

A colorful presentation that you love is great, if that works for you, but if you’d prefer to go interactive, why not try stations? It takes a lot of pressure off you, and it’s easy to repeat in session after session without losing your voice or sweating through your fancy schmancy parent meeting clothes.

With stations, you can get parents up and moving around your classroom, get them the information they want, and even create a chance to chat and answer questions informally.

If you want to try this method, here’s how I’d break it down.

Have your stations set up around the room before parents enter. Throw a welcome slide up on the board with your name, a fun photo (or collage) from classes past, and your contact information. Once parents are all inside, welcome them and invite them to move around the room to the different stations, letting them know how much time they have to move around so they can pace accordingly.

At each station, they should find an obvious sign telling them what to do, as well as any supporting papers they need to pick up or fill out.

Here are some ideas for stations:

#1 Info Sheet + Q & A With you: At this station, parents can grab a paper with your name, course description, contact information, and a QR code that takes them to any website or LMS you’d like them to have access to. You can hang out here and chat with them, answering questions and getting to know them a bit.

#2 Slideshow + Examples of Student Work: At this station, set up a computer or iPad to run a digital slideshow of student work from past years. Scatter a few great projects here too. This will give parents a sense for the type of work their kids will do in your class.

#3 Tour the Library: Invite parents to browse the shelves in your library. Maybe they’ll find a title they once loved and it will inspire them to talk books with their students. By focusing on this important space in your classroom, they’ll realize that reading is going to be an integral part of your class.

#4 Learn how to Support Students: If there are certain things you wish parents would do, like set their kids up with a library card, ask them what they’re studying, remind them to leave their cell phones in their lockers, etc., create a station with these tips. Then leave out some post-its and invite parents to add their suggestions of what has worked well for them in supporting their child’s learning.

#5 Write a Note: At this station you could go one of two ways. Invite parents to write a note of encouragement to their child that you can then share at a key moment. Or invite parents to write you a note letting you know how they feel you can best reach their child. That might mean telling you about a project their child loved in the past, about their favorite books, about their favorite subjects, about important events in their lives that are impacting their school time, etc.

You can always add more stations or choose just a few of these. You could also pair the stations with a short talk from you at the beginning. There are lots of recipes for a successful parent night – just choose what makes you feel comfortable and confident introducing them to all the wonderful work their kids will be doing. Back-to-School Night can be stressful, but this week I just want to highly recommend you create an experience that makes you feel relaxed and confident.

Go Further:

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook.

Come hang out on Instagram.

Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

If I told you the elective we’re about to dive into has an “awkward party” unit, would you believe me?

Well, it does, and I can’t wait for you to learn about it and start planning an awkward party lesson of your own. Today on the show, we’re continuing our creative electives series with veteran teacher Lisa Blake, who's been teaching for 33 years in Northern California. She's built a life skills elective to give her students confidence in how to learn new skills, not just to teach the skills themselves.

As she empowers them to explore and discover paths to success, she's not just teaching them to cook, sew, and manage the small talk at an awkward party, she's teaching them to believe they can tackle an area they know nothing about. And you can do the same for your students, whether it's through an entire elective like Lisa, or a smaller life skills unit. So let's dive in and learn how!

Go Further:

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook.

Come hang out on Instagram.

Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to answer a question from our community about reading in class. Here it is “ Hi all. Next year my middle school will be implementing a 45-minute every-other-day reading block for all students. All teachers (ELA or not) will be required to cover the class. I am wondering…what you do with it…” In today’s episode, I’m going to weigh in on how I would use a gift like this. If you give kids time to read in class, hopefully you’ll find some helpful ideas in how you can structure it so you all enjoy that time and benefit from it as much as possible.

The most important thing in my mind would be to make sure every student has access to a good book during this reading block. You could make bringing your book the only grade for this block, but even if you do, it’ll be essential to have wonderful books available during this time because no matter what you do, some kids will forget their book. I’d work with your librarian or department to make sure that there is a shelf of great age-appropriate reads available in every room. Then, as much as possible, I’d try to integrate some book recommendations. That could mean coordinating with the English department to create recommended reading posters, sharing short videos of authors reading from their work - similar to a First Chapter Friday - inviting a couple of kids to share what they’re reading if they’re loving it,

And probably putting together some kind of curated digital access so students can hook into great e and audiobooks that others have enjoyed. The English department could also be the ones to help every student pick out their first book at the start of the program to get the ball rolling productively.

This type of program, like any choice reading program, is going to build in momentum over time. Kids will likely struggle to sit in silence for 45 minutes at a time to read, especially if they don’t have a book they like. As much as possible, the early days of reading blocks should involve plenty of book PR in all its wonderful forms, and PLENTY of fantastic books available in audiobook, electronic, and physical format. Provide graphic novels, novels-in-verse, amazing series books, fantasy, scifi, and other popular genres alongside the classics. Ideally, every teacher monitoring this block could have a bit of training in watching for unengaged readers, so they can step over and suggest switching to a different book if a student’s current read is clearly boring them. Over time, as your reading culture grows and their reading muscles are strengthened, it will get easier.

Anytime you can get time to let kids read at school, in my mind it’s a win. But a quiet room and the opportunity to read will only delight a handful of students at first. This week, I want to highly recommend that whether you’re working on a whole school program or a short reading block for your own class, you remember that it takes time and sustained, enthusiastic book PR to help build a culture of reading where none exists. Keep curating great titles, offering recommendations, putting up posters, and connecting kids with whatever book will get them started on the reading escalator.

Go Further:

Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast.

Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook.

Come hang out on Instagram.

Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!