Welcome To School Letter

  Now is the time when I start preparing my back to school introduction notes.   Shortly after the school sends out the teacher assignment letters, I send my introduction letter to my students. 

  Within each letter I send 2 introduction letters, one is a letter to the parents, while the other is a letter for the student.  In addition to those two, I also send a small class list, a short description of how you can get to my website, a parent questionnaire, and a little badge for the students to wear on the first day.

 Below you can find  the little paragraph I send home with the badge and the parent questionnaire form. 

  This is the first year that I am sending home the questionnaire form with the introduction packet.  Usually, I save the questionnaire for Open House, however, the questionnaire is how I figure out parent email addresses.  Since our Open House is about two weeks after school begins ( and I hate waiting that long to have the parent contact information)  I am sending it with the packet.  In the parent introduction letter, I invite the students and parents to stop at school a week before the first day.  At that time, they can bring in their supplies and meet me.  I plan on asking parents to bring the completed questionnaire form at that time.    This will also give me a heads up on each students’ dismissal procedure. 

I ordered these from www.reallygoodstuff.com 

2011 Badge
Parent Questionnaire

Feel free to use what you would like.  All I ask is that you leave a comment!

UPDATE: In addition to the other goodies listed above, I found this great idea from Denise, on her Sunny Days in Second Grade blog.  It is an envelope with the following poem inside:

The night before school is exciting and fun.

There are always so many things to be done.

Your clothes are ready, your backpack is too.

Your classroom is full of fun things you will do.

Lots of questions go through your mind,

All types of thoughts of every kind.

But sometimes we all get the jitters down deep.

And that makes it hard to fall fast asleep.

So I’ve made this magic confetti for you,

full of promises for the whole year through.

Oh Monday night when you lay down your head,

Just sprinkle some under your pillow in bed.

The confetti will help you sleep through the night

and wake up in the morning fresh and bright.

I’ll sprinkle the confetti under my pillow, too

Because I am so super excited to see you!

Sweet Dreams!

Denise posted the poem for additional days of the week as well - in case you don't start on a Tuesday! Be sure to check her page out! 


  In an effort to cut back on needing extra postage for my letter :), I took some library card envelopes and filled them with a small printout of her poem, along with some sequin confetti.  I then folded the top of the envelope down and sealed it with a label that said, "Don't Open Until September 5th. No Peeking." It worked out perfectly!  I hope the kids enjoy it!  


                              Thanks for the great idea, Denise!

(I took the picture with my cell phone.  Apparently there is an issue with the lens as there was no weird stain on the envelope!  Grrr!  )