I know this has been talked about before. For the first time my school is having a meet and greet your teacher night a few days before school starts. The students can bring their supplies in so they don't have to bring them all the first day. They are serving ice cream in the hall. What can I do to make it special? Ideas? I teach 5th grade.

We have an "ice cream social" the night before school starts. It's when you find out who your child's teacher will be and you can bring in your supplies if you want. They serve ice cream to everyone. You can meet your child's teacher, sign up for parent help etc

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How about buying an inexpensive bouquet of daisies (or some other cheap flower) and getting a little tag to put on them that says, "Watch us blossom this year" or something along those lines. Hand one to each of your incoming students, or get little flower seed packets, same thing.

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My kids teachers usually have some kind of poem with candy taped to it. This year was something about no 'dum dums (sucker)' in our class, only 'smarties (rolled candy)'. Last year it was some kind of chocolate that went with the theme (can't remember what it was). My DS really likes it. I'm sure you can search the internet and come up with a TON of cute ideas.

At our school, our meet & greet is also the time when parents fill out the mountain of school paperwork (emergency contacts, permission to photograph, transportation arrangements, clinic info, inclement weather dismissal instructions, etc. -- it's the same information over and over again on different forms <ugh>). If your school does that too, I would suggest having some kind of activity for the students (scavenger hunt around the room, word search, etc.) to keep them busy while the parents fill out the paperwork. It's probably not a big deal with 5th graders, but with the younger ones (mine are 3rd grade & kindergarten), its more difficult to concentrate on the paperwork and supervise/entertain your child.