Our school district has two elementary buildings - one is for K-3 and the other is 4-8. Our PTO serves both schools but we've noticed that the younger kids seem to benefit more from PTO activities. We think it's because parents are more welcome at the K-3 building than they are at the 4-8. Parent involvement drops after the kids go to the 4-8 school partly because the administrations stresses student responsibility, independence, etc.

Anyway---
We are looking for fun activities/events to have for the 4-8 grade kids. Not fund raisers and not assemblies -- we have plenty of those for all the grades. What fun things does your PTO/PTA do for the middle school/Jr. high kids that the kids love?

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Cecilia

"We must love them both--those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it."
Saint Thomas Aquinas

My girls go/went to middle school, so it is 6,7,8th grade. We have an after school "social" by grade (1 for 6th grade only, 1 for 7th, 1 for 8th). School gets out at 2:50PM and it goes until 4PM. We assign by name ie: A-K brings a 6 pack of pop or water, L-R brings 6 snack size bag of chips and S-Z brings a dozen cookies. They just hang out in the commons area a socialize.

3 times a year (Oct, Jan, Apr) on a Friday night from 7-9, PTO put on a middle school activitiy night. It's our middle school only - no outside friends or sibling. It's $1 for a ticket if you buy it that day during lunch or $2 at the door. They cannot go outside, the concession stand is open, they have a DJ, DDR, all kinds of games, fuseball, ping pong, the gym is open to play basketball. It takes about 50 parents to chaperone, but the kids really seem to enjoy it - until about the end of 8th grade. The 8th grade attendance drops off and the end of the year.

HTH,
Lisa

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Our PTA does a skate night at the local roller rink. They have it after school one Friday a month and the rink donates part of the proceeds to the PTA. We have a lot of fun and the skating is easier for the older kids that the kindergartners.

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Family Bingo, Family Movie Night and the SAnta Elf Shop (at christmas of course)

These are some really good ideas. Thanks!

Lisa-- does your school have the ping pong table, foosball table, DDR, etc. or do parents lend them for the evening?

__________________
Cecilia

"We must love them both--those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it."
Saint Thomas Aquinas

Our group does a family movie night where families bring a blanket and relax in the gym to watch the movie. The movie night is free and although we have a concessions stand to make a little money, everyone in attendance gets a free popcorn.

We also have a carnival night where there is a bounce house, cake walk, etc. I think the PTO group sells tickets to the games, but the tickets are like 25c each and the group breaks even. Every child playing a game gets a little "token" prize and the winner gets a bigger prize. So everyone walks away with something.

We also do skate night at the local rink 5 or 6 times during the year.

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The school has slowly bought them all through fundraisers and grants from the PTO. Last year they bought a game table and have "poker" & card games. I can't rememeber what they bet with - I think it was candy.

Lisa

__________________
"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"