This year my school decided to use the Magic School Bus theme for our Family Math & Science Night. Planning an event of this magnitude takes several months!
About a month ahead, we invited all of the teachers in the building to have a Magic School Bus Classroom Door Decorating Contest to help promote Family Math & Science Night. The winning teacher would get a week off from morning duty, second place would get three jeans passes, and everyone who participated would earn one jeans pass. (Teachers love jeans passes!) We had a lot of great Magic School Bus doors! I decorated my classroom door with the Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System book, but forgot to take a picture! This one is my favorite. It didn't win, but it sure is cute!
That is a 3D Magic School Bus with the characters in the windows! So cute!
I put these QR Codes on buses up around the building a few weeks before the event signs went up. This was a fun way to let the students know that Math and Science Night was coming! The date and time are included. The students enjoyed checking these out. All of the QR codes had the same message, but I think next year we could make it even more fun by having each one say something different- maybe even have clues about what is coming soon!
Because I am an organizational nut, and a lover of plastic containers, I used the bus signs to help us organize and prep the materials and supplies that needed to be placed into certain classrooms:
One of the best suggestions we had from last year is to decrease the long line to get in the building by doing a Pre-Registration. Last year the line was down the block to get in! Every parent and child that attends our Family Events needs to sign in so the office has a record of how many people attended. So this year we created a special form for the parents to fill out with their names, children's names, and their teacher's names. We had two lines in the Foyer. One line was the regular New Registration. Families could walk up, sign in, get the rotation card and go. The second line was much, much faster! Drop off your already-filled-out Pre-Registration Form, get a rotation card, and go! The Pre-Registration line had double the number of people that the New Registration Line did, without ever having a wait! It was smooth and fabulous! The parents and children loved being able to walk right in and get started on the fun! We will definitely use the Pre-Registration Forms again next year!
We had four rotations with color-coded cards to designate them.
1. Cafeteria: Snacks, Estimation Station, PTO Volunteer Sign-Up, and School Sweatshirt Sales
The other three rotations were in classrooms. We had three classrooms open for each rotation, which were centered around a Magic School Bus Book. Because my school has more students in Pre-K to 2nd grade, we had two classrooms with an identical activity for those ages, and another classroom with activities geared more toward 3rd-5th grades. If a family had children in both age groups, they could choose whichever room they wanted. The Pre-K to 2nd grade classrooms were adjacent, so if one room was full, they could go into the classroom next door that was doing the exact same thing! It worked out very well! None of the rooms were too crowded, and everyone was able to participate!
These classrooms were a big hit learning about the planet names and order! My favorite part was the use of the very catchy Storybot's song "We are the Planets". The 3rd-5th graders also learned about distances of the planets.
These classrooms were also a lot of fun! The Pre-K to 2nd grade rooms measured dinosaur footprint cutouts using non-standard measurement (cubes!), and then had to order the footprints from smallest to biggest. There were also other fun dinosaur activities, and dinosaur books to look at! The 3rd-5th graders dug for fossils! (well, fossil cards buried in sand, anyway!) They loved it!
Our PreK to 2nd grade classrooms worked on Living and Non-Living activities, while our 3rd-5th grade classroom learned about food chains and habitats. Lots of fun in those rooms too!
One of the favorite activities of the evening was the Door Prizes called during each rotation switch. We set up a table in the hallway, away from the main entrance to decrease crowding by the Registration Area. Students wrote their name and teacher's name on a slip of paper, and we drew 5 names each rotation switch. We gave away many brand-new Magic School Bus books and some games like Sorry, Trouble, Uno, even a few Rubix Cubes! The kids were so excited to win new books and games!
My school is very blessed to have a community business partner that helps us out a great deal. We had eight volunteers come and help us run this event. Having extra pairs of hands really helps when you are hosting such a big event! We made cute little Thank You gifts for our volunteers. I found red, heart-shaped vases at Dollar Tree, filled them with Hershey's Kisses, and put this note on them with red ribbon:
Overall, I think this year's Family Math and Science Night was a HUGE success! We had over 300 people attend! I am so proud of how everyone worked together to make this possible! The families, students, and staff had a great time! It was awesome!
