Meet-n-Greet

I'd like to share something we did in our ward that was hugely successful. This was fantastic and we plan on doing this again next year.  Good luck and have fun! Mia
 

 
We did a primary meet-n-greet on the first Saturday in January.
 
We have a large primary and we have had a lot of teachers and families moving in and out of the ward.  As a new presidency we were concerned with reverence because the kids did not know their teachers or the expectations the teachers had.  The teachers did not seem to understand the full scope of the calling either.  So we developed a way to help the teachers, parents, and kids in our primary.
 
We assigned the teachers to the class, then the kids to the class, then the class to a room.  Then we planned our first quarter leadership meeting and primary activity.
 
The teachers came at 10:00 for a 1/2 hour meeting about their calling and the expectations we had for them. 
1.  Attend all meetings regularly including primary activities and leadership meeting.
2.  Get a substitute if you are going to miss your class time.
3.  Set class rules.
4.  No weekly treats.
5.  Lights Out Program details.
6.  Had the Bishop Advisor go over something from the manual.
7.  Gave them their manuals, all church materials, class list, sub list, etc....
 
Teachers were invited to come prepared with a picnic basket and blanket for their class.  At 10:30 we had the junior primary teachers find their classrooms and prepare their picnic and class rules etc. for the kids and their parents who were arriving at 11:00.  We provided the food and paper goods.  We had rolls with a slice of ham or turkey, carrot sticks, fruit snacks, and soda.
 
Senior primary teachers set up a round table in the Relief Society & Young Women's rooms.  This was because our junior & senior primary use the same rooms and they could not both have their picnic in the same room.
 
At 11:00 we began our meeting just like opening exercises on Sunday.  We then went over our expectations for the parents and kids.
 
1.  Do not bring toys to class
2.  Do not bring treats to class
3.  Went over the primary rules to raise hand, sit on pockets, keep hands to oneself etc.
4.  Junior primary children will only be released to a parent or YM/YW.
5.  Talked about respecting teachers and leaders.
6.  Reviewed the Faith-in-God program
 
This was quick and difficult because the kids were rowdy.  We will have to work on this for next year.
 
Then at 11:30 we began announcing the names of the teachers who stood as we called the names of the children in their class.  Once the kids heard their names and the whole class was called they followed their teacher to have lunch with him/her.  We finished at 12:00 on the dot and the clean up was very easy.  The kids, parents, and teachers loved it!
 
We even included the nursery.
 
We designed this activity for the following reasons:
1.  Introduce the kids to their teacher.
2.  Allow the teacher to see his/her class before the following day.
3.  Help the parents know the order of primary and where their children would be after church.
4.  Established guidelines for everyone so we could start off on the right foot.
5.  Get the teachers their manuals without trapsing all over.
6.  Give families a church map with class numbers.
7.  Identify errors in our assignments before Sunday morning.
8.  BONUS:  WE USED THIS AS OUR FIRST QUARTER PRIMARY ACTIVITY AND LEADERSHIP MEETING!  Giving us a break from all the goings on at the Holidays.