room parent 101: 3 tricks to make the year rock (and free tools to stay organized!)

So, you’re a room parent this year, huh?

Whether you’ve been roped into it or whether you chose to take on this important role on your own free will, there are some things you must know:

1. You will have a lot of fun. Really, you will. The kids are so cool. They are. And the parents appreciate you!
2. You will be organized.  From right now until the end of the year, friend, you must stay organized.
3. You will need a team. So starting now, you may be the room parent, but you will have a handful of folks who will help you with everything.

I’m excited to say that I have you covered on almost all fronts here, and for that, I’m thrilled.

I always say this–there’s no reason to invent the wheel. The room paren thaaaang has been done for years and years and years and years now. So let’s join forces, share our resources, and make it easier on everyone.

Here’s the skinny. . .

Room Parent 101 — 3 Tricks to Make the Year ROCK (and Free Tools to Stay Organized):

Tools you say? Yes. And we’re not talking hammer and nails. We’re talking new and different and all designed to make your life easier.

You’ll get a quickie overview, and then at the end of the post, grab a quickie form with links and details on how to make these resources YOURS.

The Parent Dashboard

The Parent Dashboard has kept me sane for the last five years. It’s an online tool that helps both co-room parents and single room parents stay organized.

Here’s a sample:

It has:

• a frozen column for parent name, phone, email
• column for child name
• column for Halloween party donations, help, etc.
• column for holiday party donations
• column for Valentine’s Day party donations, help, etc.
• column for spring fair donations
• column for end of year donations
• column for notes

The Parent Contact List

I use Google (gmail), so organizing my Google Contacts is super easy. However, no matter which platform you use, you can, I’m sure, create a group for your class.

The idea is that you want to create a class group so that any time you want to send an email to the classroom parents, you just need to type the group name.

The Online Sign-up Tools

There are a ton of these tools out there, but honestly, I like these two:

• Sign-up Genius
• Signup.com (was once VolunteerSpot)

Check them both out. Find out which one makes most sense to you for your needs, and you probably won’t even need to purchase a membership.

I like that the SignUpGenius allows you to print out a final sign-up sheet at the end (which is great to take to parties).

And I also like that it allows you to message folks who sign up.

Do you want the links to these super helpful resources?

You can grab ’em all here:

It’s a 2-pager with links to the three resources outlined above.

But if you want even more help for classroom parents, definitely visit the following posts:

Want a few fun ways to play with words? 

• Raising word conscious kids
• a word a day: raising word conscious kids
• learning during read-alouds: word consciousness
• Grammar Sharks Cards
• farm full of rich vocabulary words
• oral language development

And don’t forget:

How about some lunchbox looooove notes? Here they are:

• School Rules: Super Silly Lunchbox Jokes
• Positive Affirmation lunchbox notes
• Nicer than Necessary lunchbox notes
• Wordless Riddles lunchbox notes
• Halloween Jokes lunchbox notes
• Hidden Pictures lunchbox notes
• Disney Fun Fact lunchbox notes
• Fun Fact lunchbox notes
• Budgie Fun Fact lunchbox notes
• Happy, Happy Day lunchbox notes
• Homemade lunchbox notes
• Parent Notes for lunchbox or anywhere
• Holiday Fun Fact lunchbox notes
• More Holiday lunchbox notes
• Valentine’s Day Knock-Knock joke lunchbox notes
• St. Patty’s Day Joke lunchbox notes
• Springtime lunchbox love notes
• Super-Sweet lunchbox love notes

fyi: feel free to use the affiliate links below to make your kids’ lunches awesome