Month: March 2019

March 29, 2019

Spring time is finally here, which means most schools are anticipating their biggest dance yet: Spring Fling! Many schools spend loads of money on decorations for this dance, when in all reality you can create DIY decorations while spending half the amount you were going to spend. Plus, you don’t have to be the craftiest person to create these decorations. Here are some Spring Fling decoration ideas:

• Watering Can Centerpieces– Go to a few thrift stores and find old flower pot watering cans. It doesn’t matter if they look rusty and gross. Spray paint them a bright color like blue or green. Then fill them with either fake or real flowers and use them as table centerpieces at the dance.
• Empty Wine Bottles– These can literally be used for anything. They’re perfect to use as vases or to light candles in. Plus, the wine bottles don’t have to match so you can get them from anywhere!
• Paper Flowers– Either use tissue paper or regular paper and follow an online tutorial on Pinterest. You can create big, different color tissue paper flowers and hang them from the ceiling. You could also hang them on the walls or use them on the table tops. 
• Balloon Wall– Instead of purchasing a super expensive backdrop for photographs, buy a large packet of balloons and a plain colored sheet. Hang the sheet up and blow up all of the multi-colored balloons. Cover the entire plain sheet with balloons and you’ve created a backdrop for pictures.
• Ceiling Umbrellas– Another great idea is to have lots of designed and colorful umbrellas hanging from the ceiling. This will give the room a Spring vibe and it’s something unique to do rather than have streamers hanging down. 
• Balloon Photographs– Something easy, yet super memorable to do is have a bunch of balloons hanging from the ceiling and tie one picture at the end of each balloon. These pictures could be ones that the students submit of them and their classmates. This way when they look up they’ll see thousands of pictures of them and their friends. 

There are so many different ways you, as a Dance Planner, can be creative for a Spring Fling dance, plus you don’t have to spend as much money as you usually would. Some of these might take more time and dedication, but if you’re managing your Spring Fling with My School Dance, you’ll have more time to devote to this. I’d suggest looking more into our Pinterest page to see the different decorations that you can create for your school’s dance.

If your school is looking for a new management platform, check out My School Dance. We’ll not only help you come up with cool ideas like these, but we’ll help make the difficult managing aspects a lot easier. Check out our website today! If you liked reading this blog, check out some of our other blog posts too. You’ll find some more helpful tips!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

March 22, 2019

If you’re a My School Dance user, I want to make sure you’re aware of all of your resources when it comes to this platform. My School Dance can be extremely beneficial for everyone that’s in charge of organizing an event or dance. When you’re a first time user, it can be a little overwhelming with all of the resources you are provided when managing a dance. That’s why I’m here! I wanted to cover a few of the basic resources that are available to My School Dance users that I think a lot of people forget about!

• Website Familiarity– A lot of schools that sign up want to dive into managing right away, which is great! However, I always suggest playing around with your school’s My School Dance landing page first. This way you, as a dance planner, are able to explore the site and see all of the resources and cool things you can do when managing your school’s dance.
• Social Posts– One really awesome resource that not a lot of schools know about is social promoting and social posts. Promoting your school’s dance is really one of the most important parts to planning and managing. Creative social media posts/flyers can go a long way and grab the attention of high schoolers. Create a social post/flyer and post it all over your school’s social channels and website. If you feel like you’re not the most creative, reach out to My School Dance. We’ll be more than happy to craft up a few social posts/flyers for your school!
• Dance Partners– Your Dance Partner that gets assigned to you through My School Dance will be your number one resource and a huge help. Don’t ever be afraid to reach out to them and ask for anything. They know the in’s and out’s of this platform, plus can always give some great advice when needed! 

A lot of schools overlook these resources cause they seem so simple, but I’m telling you these 3 tips will save your dance managing life. My School Dance members are here to help in anyway that we can so don’t hesitate to reach out!

For those schools that aren’t signed up with My School Dance, check out our website or social sites to get more information about how we can help you. My School Dance is a free platform for schools to manage all dances and events. Feel free to reach out to us through our contact page on our website or message us on any social site! If you liked reading this blog, check out some of our other blog posts in the resources section on our website page!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

March 15, 2019

Are you currently in charge of managing your school’s upcoming Prom? Are you starting to realize it isn’t as easy as you thought? Coming from someone who used to be in charge of planning school dances, I know how difficult it can be. That’s why I’m here to give you 10 Actionable Tips to Better Prom Management! 

1. Create a detailed Prom budget with specific money amounts that you researched for venue, food, music, etc.
2. Book all reservations within the first month of planning.
3. Get a list of volunteers to help out at the dance.
4. Have a set platform to organize all details/data for the dance.
5. Have monthly/weekly meetings with your dance committee to make sure all tasks are getting accomplished.
6. Promote your dance on all social media platforms and throughout the school.
7. Figure out a way to communicate with parents for emergency purposes.
8. Sell dance tickets online, rather than during lunch hours.
9. Visit local businesses/restaurants to get donations for the dance, whether it’s catering services, music services, photographers, or even monetary donations.
10. Check students in and out of the dance with an online platform rather than flipping through papers wasting more time.

All 10 actionable tips will help make your managing process 10 times easier than what you were doing before. My School Dance actually covers all of these tips and allows you even more free time to take care of the other 100 tasks you have to get done.

My School Dance is known to help the dance planners actually manage a dance without a thousand hiccups and headaches. Plus, it’s free for schools to use. Prom is coming up for a lot of schools, so make sure your school isn’t the one struggling through their management process. Sign your school up now for free!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

March 8, 2019

Are you feeling lucky? Well, even if you’re not, today is your lucky day! I know all of my teachers out there love finding new ways to bring fun educational activities into the classroom. That’s why I wanted to share some great activities to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day coming up!

• Pot of Gold Writing– Pair your students up into small groups and have them discuss different things they would do if they were to receive a pot of gold. Would they donate it? Keep it all to themselves? Have them collaborate with one another to come up with a few solid ideas and have them share it to the class.
• St. Patrick’s Day Party/Dance– Encourage students to all wear green clothing and bring in all Irish food. You can decorate your classroom/gym with green decorations and celebrate the Irish history. It doesn’t hurt to throw a last minute dance party!
• Word Search– Looking for something that’s quick and easy, yet still fun for the students? Create or print out a St. Patrick’s Day word search! This gets their brains thinking and helps them focus more.
• Ireland Map Bulletin Board– A perfect geography lesson would be to print out a huge map of Ireland and have the students research different cities and regions of Ireland. They can then come back and do a presentation on their findings.
• Shamrock Trivia– Cut out different shamrock shapes and write down a series of questions relevant to what your students are learning. Split the students up into two teams and have them go one at a time to try to answer the trivia.

It’s important to have at least one type of activity for students to do for St. Patrick’s Day. It excites the students and make them eager to learn. Even if you don’t want to do anything too big, just a simple word search is fun for students! It lets them learn about the history behind a holiday, while trying something different at school.

My School Dance encourages all teachers to come up with a creative activity for the students to work on next week to celebrate the holiday!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

March 1, 2019

Spring time will soon be arriving, which means: My School Dance’s new enhancements will be launching! These enhancements were designed to create an even smoother platform for teachers, administration, parents, and students to navigate through. These enhancements will be launched mid March, just in time for Prom season!

Some of these new enhancements are:

• Parent Role– Currently, My School Dance can only be used for schools with students aged 13 and older. Not anymore! We are creating a Parent Role which enables us to work with middle and elementary school students as well. That means for all of you middle and elementary schools that host holiday dances, Daddy Daughter Dances, and other social functions, you’ll be able to utilize our platform as well.
• Ticket Builder– Schools are allowed to create multiple different kinds of ticket types for each dance they host. Some schools offer discounts if you buy a couple ticket versus a single. This way your school can create multiple tickets with different dates and prices.
• Day of the Dance Dashboard– This allows planners to view metrics and reports on everything that is happening. You’re able to see data on things such as: what students are attending, how many kids have checked in, and the status on if students have agreements signed. It also allows you to text all parents or individual parents when their child arrives, when the dance is over, or if their child is leaving early.
• Funds– As a school, you can choose the way you receive your funds from My School Dance. You can either get direct deposit through our payment processor, Stripe, or My School Dance will send your school a check. You can choose to receive these checks weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, after the dance, etc. This way your school can just deposit the checks whenever you want.

I’m super excited about these new enhancements because I know they will make the dance managing process even easier than before, if that’s even possible! With these features, planning your upcoming dance this spring will be a breeze! Make sure to sign your school up now for free to be ready when the new enhancements launch!

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656