How To Make A Preschool Welcome Packet

Yay – they signed up! But now what? What kinds of materials should you put in your preschooler sign up packet after families register for your preschool? It’s simpler than you think!

Don’t Complicate The Welcome Packet

When a family signs up for your preschool it seems like you should give them something. Maybe a goodie bag to commemorate the occasion, some preschool swag, or your policies and procedures handbook. Maybe you should give them all of it!

While you can hand them a preschooler sign up packet filled with a welcome letter, a school calendar, your policies and procedures handbook, a branded refrigerator magnet, and water bottles and t-shirts for the whole family, keep in mind that many of these things will get misplaced or lose their novelty long before the first day of school. Parents will look at the stuff they should probably read, and think to themselves, oh, I have plenty of time for that… then forget all about it.

What Is the Difference Between The Tour And The Meet & Greet?

There are typically two times when you meet your preschool families prior to the first day of school—when they take their tour of your preschool and at the Meet & Greet. The tour can happen any time between March and August and the Meet & Greet should be a couple of weeks before school starts.

What is the difference between The Tour and the Meet & Greet? After seeing your advertising and calling to speak with you, a family comes to meet you and take a tour of your preschool. This is usually their first contact with you, and they are in investigative mode, checking out their options, and deciding which preschool their child will attend. If they register with your school, they will come back in a few months for a Meet & Greet.

At the Meet & Greet, all of the parents and students come to your home and the preschoolers will participate in a circle time with your preschool teacher or a friend who helps you out for the night, while you take the parents into a different room and go over the calendar, the schedule, the policies and procedures, and answer any questions they may have.

On this night the parents are in school mode. They are focused on making sure that their preschooler (and any other children they may have) is where they need to be, when they need to be there, and that they know everything they need to know to juggle each family member’s schedule. When you send them home with the policies and procedures handbook about 80% of them will read it. (There will always be a certain percentage of parents who just do not read the policies and procedures manual, it’s not just your preschool.)

What About The T-Shirts?

But what about those cute little preschool t-shirts? When do you hand out those? Save those for the first day of classes. The children will show up all dressed in new school outfits and mom and dad will take all the pictures. Then when they leave to go home, they will be excited to show off their brand-new preschool t-shirt!

A preschooler sign up packet doesn’t have to be elaborate, keep it simple and it will be more effective.