The very best plan to keep your families engaged in your PTO and school is to plan a year round schedule of family events.
Some events are better timed for different parts of the year than other, so in this blog post, we’ll dive into ideas that are especially perfect for the Winter months of the year.
Many of these ideas are included in our super popular article with 57 family fun ideas, but they’re worth highlighting here since they’re such solid options for the Winter season!
Dinner and a Movie
The Early Winter season is so busy since it’s at the same time as the holidays, so anything you can do to ease the schedules of families during this time will be appreciated!
Why not plan a movie night and serve dinner for an entire evening of fun?
Just follow all of the tips outlined in How to Host a Movie Night for your School and offer a dinner option for a really fun evening.
Partner with a restaurant to bring in dinner or order a whole host of pizzas for a no fuss meal.
Have the kids vote on the movie to be shown to boost attendance and also be sure to send home a flyer well in advance to collect RSVPs and get an early head count.
Having an estimation of the attendance will help you have the right amount of food or snacks on hand to avoid either running out or having way too much in the end.
This flyer template comes with an option for a free or paid ticket option:
Carnival
Shake up the long, dark days of Winter by introducing some fun and games into the mix by putting on a school carnival!
This event is best held during the post holiday season, in either late Winter or Early Spring since it requires a lot of advance planning to pull off without burning out volunteers.
And it’s also an event that can work for a variety of age sets, as long as the games and prizes are switched up to be age appropriate.
Even high schoolers will enjoy this event as long as the activities and prizes are scaled up accordingly.
Carnivals can be beasts to plan, so cut down on the workload for the Family Event Chair by lining up both donations and volunteers to spread things out.
This flyer set comes with a variety of easy to edit templates to advertise the event, recruit fresh faced volunteers and get donations for the event:
Special Persons Dance
Plan an inclusive event by ditching the traditional mother son or daddy daughter dance and opt for a special person’s dance instead.
This means that the student can bring anyone to the event that is special to them.
It could be a an Aunt or Uncle, Grandmother, cousin or even a neighbor they have a fund relationship with.
This small switch of wording will be so appreciated by those who don’t necessarily fit in with the older names of dances and will make everyone feel included.
This event is perfect for grades 6 and younger.
For the older crowd, plan a dance.
A glow dance is a theme that’s universally loved, so give it a try no matter the age set of your dance attendees.
This flyer is an eye-catching way to spread the word about the dance:
Toy and Book Swap
This event is especially helpful in bridging the time between the start of Winter Break and Christmas if there’s many days between the two.
Younger kids will be focused on the new things and have fun with them.
Families will love the opportunity to declutter as well as having access to new books and play things that didn’t cost them anything.
Leftover books can be taken to a Little Free Library in the area and extra toys can be donated to a local charity, spreading even more goodness into your community. Or you can save them for the next family fun idea!
Bingo Night
A Bingo Night is another way of spelling F-U-N!
Isn’t Bingo gambling?
I guess if folks are paying for the Bingo cards, if could be considered a form of gambling, but it you’re just doing the event for fun and not charging for the cards, then it will be fine.
Buy a few books of disposable bingo cards and use skittles for editable markers for extra fun.
No need to spend big on prizes for the bingo winners:
- Head to the dollar store for inexpensive trinkets
- Use the leftover books and toys from the toy swap
- Get donations from a used book store
- Ask for donations from your local Buy Nothing Group on Facebook
- Raid your stash of leftover fundraising incentives from past years
This event is especially great for the Family Events Chair since it’s especially easy to plan.
Buy the supplies in advance, show up the night of for a quick set up and enjoy an evening of fun!
Need a customizable flyer to promote the event?
Check out this one:
Family Math Night
Partner with your school’s math department for a Family Math Night.
This event would be a great one to plan with teachers to help students practice crucial skills in advance of any state testing your students are scheduled to have.
The teachers can help plan the activities and the collaboration will ensure everyone stays entertained during the evening.
And by hosting this type of event, you’re giving parents a way to demonstrate to their kids that they not only value their education, but also math specifically.
Actually, this also shows the same to the teachers for both the parents and your group too.
The bottom line is that focusing on math is a great way to broaden kids’ exposure to STEAM subjects and help kids get in much needed practice before Spring testing season.
Talk about a win-win for all!
Boost attendance at the event by sending home a flyer to promote it:
Watch this!
Over to you!
The best plan for family events is to take the season into account when developing the schedule for school gatherings.
Weather can affect turnout so much, so during the Winter months, focus on bringing families inside for some fun!
These six ideas are just some of the events that will work during that season!
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