Open house for daycare: 7 Preschool Open House Ideas

7 Preschool Open House Ideas

Open house events can be a great way to market your childcare center or preschool to prospective families. Not only do they allow you to meet potential new parents, but they also allow you to share about your program, educational philosophies, and lesson plans in a hands-on and personal way.

A great open house can also make a lasting impression on prospective parents, helping to increase awareness about your program and boost enrollment numbers at your center. If you’re looking for preschool open house ideas, here are five tips for planning an event that prospective families will love.

1. Choose a strategic time and date for your preschool open house

The first step to hosting a successful preschool open house is to choose a convenient time and date for prospective parents. Think about what would be easiest for families with young children—typically, early weeknights work best. 

Ensure your open house doesn’t overlap with significant local events, such as festivals, major sports events, or school graduations. You’ll also want to avoid holidays, as many families may be busy or out of town during those times.

To give prospective families ample time to learn about and assess your program, you should hold your open house about two months before your enrollment applications are due. You can also consider hosting multiple open house events to accommodate more families’ schedules.

2. Spread the word about your open house through multiple platforms

Promoting your open house is key to generating interest and higher attendance at your event. Consider all the platforms and networks your center has access to and how you can use them to spread the word about your event. 

For example, if your program uses social media, share about your open house on all your pages before the event date. You can also post a few reminders during the weeks leading up to the open house, so families don’t forget to add it to their calendars! 

You can also create a public event post on Facebook for your open house that includes the event’s date, time, and location. Share the event post with your Facebook friends, parenting groups, and groups within your community to raise awareness of the open house.

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Encourage families to RSVP to the event on Facebook and share the post on other social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter to help spread the word.

If you have a flyer for the open house, you can post a picture of it on Instagram. Include details about your open house in the post’s description and ask your followers to visit your website using a link in your Instagram profile. 

Use hashtags strategically in your post so it appears when parents search for information about daycares, preschools, and childcare centers.

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You’ll also want to announce your open house on your website, so families actively browsing your page will be sure to see it. Share the event in an eye-catching place, such as a banner image at the top of your home page. 

You should also ensure that the event’s time, location, and purpose are easy to see at a glance so that interested families don’t need to search or click through for more details.  

Word of mouth can also be an extremely effective way to market your open house. Ask your currently enrolled families and staff to help you spread the word and consider offering a referral bonus to anyone who refers a family that enrolls in your program. If you share information about the open house on social media, you can ask your current families and staff to share the post with their followers.

If any currently enrolled families or staff members are members of parenting or early education groups online, you can also ask them to share about your open house in those communities. Young parents are using the internet to research childcare options more than ever, so online recommendations can be highly effective for generating interest in your open house!

3. Invite your staff and family volunteers to attend 

You’ll want a small team onsite to help during the open house, so ask your staff and families to volunteer at least a month in advance, so they have plenty of notice.

Prospective families will appreciate the chance to connect with your teachers and hear directly from other parents about their experiences with your program.

During your open house, assign one or more greeters so families are properly welcomed when they arrive. If your center is large, it’s best to have at least one volunteer stationed in each classroom and your outside play area, so visitors never have to look far if they have questions.

If you require guests to wear masks, remind the greeter to inform families of your COVID-19 safety requirements. It’s also a good idea to have extra masks on hand so you don’t need to turn any prospective families away.

4. Create a welcoming atmosphere

Organizing and decorating your classrooms, displaying lesson examples, and providing snacks and enriching activities will create a welcoming setting and help you make an excellent first impression. 

Display students’ work in the classrooms and hallways to give parents an idea of the material their children will learn and get children excited about the activities your program offers.

Provide healthy refreshments such as graham crackers, fruit, and water rather than candy and sugary juices. Offering healthy options at your open house will show parents that you value their children’s nutrition.

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   4. Preschool open houses should be engaging for parents and their children, even though parents are the primary target. Consider setting up activities for children who attend your open house. Activities can include arts and crafts projects, scavenger hunts, or games that can help you get to know your prospective families.

5. Prepare helpful materials for families to take home

During your open house, families will be busy taking in a lot of new and exciting information. Help prospective families easily access essential details about your program by preparing handouts and packets for them to take home.

These materials can also help keep your center top of mind for families and encourage them to apply sooner, especially if they’re simultaneously evaluating multiple childcare programs or preschools!

Here are some suggestions for helpful resources for prospective families: 

• Brochures for your program
• Enrollment packets
• Sample schedules
• Calendars 
• COVID-19 FAQ pages
• Family handbooks

During your open house, organize your printed materials on an information table so they’re easy to find and all in one place. You might also assign a staff member to monitor the table so they can remind families to take the printouts they need as they’re leaving the event.

6. Consider offering an enrollment incentive to attendees

To encourage more parents to submit their enrollment applications, you can offer an exclusive incentive to attendees, such as a discounted or waived registration fee. For any guests who wish to submit an enrollment application during the open house, prepare a table with necessary tools—such as printed applications, pens, or tablets for submitting online applications—to make the process as convenient as possible.

You can extend your special offer for a week or so after your event if families need more time to decide.

7. Follow up with attendees

Collect the contact information of all potential new families that visit your open house. Be sure to find a moment of personal connection with them that you can bring up later when you contact them. It may be a childcare philosophy or strategy they found particularly interesting or an anecdotal story shared between you.

Within about 48 hours after the event, send families a follow-up message via phone or email. In your message, reference the connection you made at the event and why your center is the best choice for them. Thank them for coming, summarize some of the highlights of your program’s offerings, and ask if they have any further questions. Following up with all attendees will ensure your center stays top of mind as families consider their options. 

Show families what sets your program apart by using these tips at your next open house

By incorporating the above preschool open house ideas, your event will be set up for success. Remember to have fun and be yourself—your program has so much to offer, and your genuine excitement about your center will be contagious to prospective families!

How to Actually Host An Amazing Daycare Open House

Something that every business, even an in-home daycare business, has to do is marketing. Sometimes word-of-mouth just isn’t enough to fill those empty spots.

But what if there was a way to fill all your daycare spots in one day! Not only that but to create a waiting list for future spots. Wouldn’t you want to know about it? I thought so.

So today, I thought we would look at a marketing method that businesses large & small use all the time so we can use it too. Let’s find out how to host a daycare open house.

Hosting a Daycare Open House

Before we jump into how to host a daycare open house, I thought we would touch on why this could be a great marketing method for daycare providers.

Why An Open House?

Do you remember those back-to-school nights in grade school? That was when your parents would go and meet your teacher and get a feel for how things were going in the class.

Well, a daycare open house can do the same thing for your childcare business. Unlike the typical daycare tour, at a daycare open house, you can host several families at once. Imagine being able to address parent questions, show off highlights of your program, and all the rest – but just once! Nice right?!

A daycare open house kinda takes the tour to a higher level. But at the same time condenses those one-family weekly tours into one (predetermined) time slot for many families.

Finally, hosting a daycare open house allows you to get a feel for the families and the childcare needs in the community.

Planning Your Daycare Open House

Choose A Date

Pick A Date

The first thing you need to do is to pick a day for your daycare open house. Whether you will host this event monthly, quarterly, or annually, here are a few things to consider when choosing a day & time:

• If you choose a week night, try to do early evening to avoid bedtimes
• Skip Friday nights
• Try to avoid dates around holidays
• Set a specific start & end time to avoid lingering
• Also consider space and capacity
• Consider scheduling repeat events on a different day of the week or time

Marketing Your Open House

Marketing is key so you will want to plan to get the word out well in advance so people can schedule to attend. Use both printed and other forms of advertising. Consider asking former clients to share an invite with family, friends, and coworkers.

Create invitations.

Put an abbreviated invite in your usual daycare ads. Use Google and social media to announce your daycare open house.

Highlight the BEST FEATURES of your business in your ads and point out that you would love for parents to attend the open house and see your great program for themselves.

Don’t forget to promote the event on your website and even on your voicemail.

Remember to reach out to businesses in your area that might have parents looking for childcare.

When posting on social media, try to include local hashtags that will target people in your community.

Finally, it is best to create both physical & virtual daycare open house flyers for your event. You will want to create visually appealing flyers that you can post around your community. Here are a few places you can use:

• Evite
• Canva
• VistaPrint

Clean The Class

Having a clean & uncluttered space will go a long way in putting your best foot forward with parents. People are more likely to trust you and picture their child at your daycare if it is clean & inviting. Considering doing a mini purge or storing some items away before the event.

The Staff Too

If you have staff, ask them to attend your daycare open house. It is the perfect time for parents to get to know them as well. It is a good practice to have a staff person greet people as they arrive and leave.

No staff yet? Get your spouse or teenager to play receptionist for the night.

Be ready for enrollments!

Be Ready To Enroll

Parents might be ready to sign up at your event so be ready. Here are a few things to have on hand to capture those new clients:

• Brochure or flyer about your daycare
• FAQ page
• Daily Schedule
• About Us – curriculum, philosopy, themes, etc.
• Contact Info.
• Application
• Business Card
• Waiting List

Much of this information you can probably copy or print from your website.

How to Host An Open House

Have activities for the children.

Set Up Activities

You can probably count on most if not all invitees to bring their children with them to the event. So be ready with ready-made daycare open house activities and stations already set up. Have a variety of activities for the children staged and ready to go. This is a perfect thing for your assistant to help with during the open house.

Having activities for the children to do, not only highlights your program but also gives the parents time to get to picture their child at your daycare.

Welcome Them In!

As people arrive, have a welcome area set up with a sign-in sheet. This will allow you to capture contact information including email addresses. Your assistant can help by encouraging parents to sign in upon arrival.

Let Them Eat

Offering refreshments at your daycare open house is a great idea. Offering coffee, hot cocoa, and a small snack will do the trick here. You could even feature some of the same menu items you serve at the daycare.

Setting up a snack table where people can talk and feel comfortable will create a more welcoming environment.

Set the Mood

Speaking of a welcoming environment, let’s set the mood for a great event. Think about playing some fun instrumental music in the background. Just make sure it’s low enough so that it doesn’t compete with conversation.

Use all the senses. Even after giving everything a good clean, maybe add an air freshener so that that clean smell lingers a bit.

Pep Up The Perks

Incentives work great for getting people to take fast actions. Think about what you could offer people who sign up at the event. Here are some enrollment perks you could offer. Of course, so people don’t feel pressured, it would be best to extend any offer for a couple of weeks after the daycare open house.

Related Reading:

• Daycare Enrollment Perks
• How to Create an Early Enrollment Program

Make sure your guests have a place to sign up. Think about designating a table or several clipboards with applications and other forms. Go ahead and put a nice welcoming sign right on the table.

Always follow-up!

What to Do After The Event

What you do after a daycare open house is almost as important as the event itself. After about a week, reach out to any attendees that didn’t enroll yet. Send a mass email to all those door sign-ups stating how nice it was that they took time to attend the event, ask if they have any questions, and remind them of when the open house offer will expire.

CLICK TO PIN FOR LATER!

You Can Host An Amazing Daycare Open House

Using a daycare open house to market your childcare is a great way to call attention to your business. Not just as a grand opening idea, you should consider hosting an open house seasonally or at least once a year.

Hosting an event like a daycare open house is a great way to show parents in your community the wonderful quality program you offer. It also gives credibility to your childcare business and allows you to foster relationships in your community.

Now of course I can’t promise that you will fill all your open spots at your open house, but it definitely could happen. An open house event has the potential to be your secret weapon for marketing your daycare business, so why not use it.

OGKUSO SRTSN OPEN HOUSE, Ulyanovsk (TIN 7327017615), details, extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, address, mail, website, phone, financial indicators

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CfDJ8KhhAkvpk5VPj2mnJQbPpPFGM4Gct5Zc8_5i-qOfbzJSb67jwAqWE14Io5aiuhv5Kw3SXWY70URgs0MLzcxm3SERLhTjap5MPn_Eu7p9e3IzgT_ZmFkVDS6dZn753DFAEWk vDeq7KjFMkVZPpcZuRbg

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Full name of the organization

REGIONAL STATE STATE INSTITUTION OF SOCIAL SERVICE “SOCIAL AND REHABILITATION CENTER FOR MINORS “OPEN HOUSE” IN ULYANOVSK” 9 0003

English name

OGKUSO SRTSN “OTKRYTY DOM”

Address

Ulyanovsk region . , Ulyanovsk, st. Ryabikova, 31

OKFS

Property of constituent entities of the Russian Federation

OKOPF

State treasury institutions of constituent entities of the Russian Federation

OKOGU

– labor and social issues

TIN

7327017615

PSRN

1027301487003

Checkpoint

732701001

OKATO

Ulyanovsk region, Ulyanovsk, Zasviyazhsky

OKPO

25232929

OKTMO

Ulyanovsk region, Urban districts of the Ulyanovsk region, Ulyanovsk

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Data without updates available in the SPARK system.
For up-to-date data – .

Information on state registration

Date of registration

02.12.2002

Registration authority

Federal Tax Service of Russia for the Ulyanovsk region

Address of the registration authority

432063, Ulyanovsk, Kuznetsova st. , 16a

Registration authority where the registration file is located

Department of the Federal Tax Service for the Ulyanovsk Region

Types of activity

Main activity for OKV ED

87.90

residential care other

Additional activities

85.41

Additional education for children and adults

Description

Company OGKUSO SRTSN OPEN HOUSE, address: Ulyanovsk region, Ulyanovsk, st. Ryabikova, 31 was registered on 02.12.2002. The organization was assigned TIN 7327017615, PSRN 1027301487003, KPP 732701001. The main activity is other care activities with provision of accommodation, in total 2 types of activities are registered according to OKVED. There are no connections with other companies.
Number of co-owners (according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities): 1, director – Sokolova Irina Olegovna.
The company OGKUSO SRTSN OPEN HOUSE did not take part in tenders. 2 enforcement proceedings were initiated against the company. OGKUSO SRTSN OPEN HOUSE participated in 23 arbitration cases: in 23 as a defendant.
Details of OGKUSO SRTSN OPEN HOUSE, legal address, official website and extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, as well as 4 significant events are available in the SPARK system (demo access is free).

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