Month: October 2019

Winter Formal season is here! Bring out the snowflakes, ice castles, glitter, and more! One of the first steps to planning a dance is figuring out the theme you want to go with. My School Dance is here to provide you with the Hottest Winter Formal Themes for the year!

Blizzard Ball

Don’t be boring and do the regular snowball dance. Make it a flustering blizzard theme! Have white fake snow and snowflakes covering the entire venue! Want to be even more creative? Have a fake snow machine going too!

Cocoa Cotillion

Who doesn’t love a hot cup of cocoa when it’s freezing outside? Make your entire theme hot chocolate-themed! Have a hot cocoa bar with all the essential toppings. This will be an extra cozy theme to do!

Black and Gold

Looking for more of a classier theme? Host an all-black and gold-themed ball! Dazzle the guests with sparkly chandeliers and black velvet tablecloths. Have black and gold tableware and decor all over.

Gumdrop Gala

Create a festive gumdrop-themed dance! Get different candy and use them as decorations! You can even have a gumdrop bar as the dessert for the students. 

Tundra Themed

Why not use a cold destination as your school’s formal theme? Pick somewhere like Canada, Alaska, the Tundra, etc., and come up with a creative theme based on that!

Winter in Paris

Want to have a fun theme like Paris, but also want to keep the Winter Wonderland theme going? Just do both! Have a Winter in Paris theme. Create an Eiffel Tower with snow surrounding it! 

These are just a few of My School Dance’s top picks for Winter Formal themes for 2019-2020. If you plan on using one of these let us know! We love getting feedback on our ideas!

Pick your Winter Formal theme and then head to My School Dance’s platform to start selling your tickets online! My School Dance’s platform is free for all schools to use! Why wouldn’t you try it? Test out our platform with your school’s Winter Formal dance and then be all set when Prom comes around!

Want more dance planning tips? Read these blogs next: How to Hire the Right DJ for your School Dance, How to Create a School Dance Budget, and Top 5 Places to get your School Dance Decorations!

October 25, 2019

Hiring your school’s DJ for your dance might not seem like an important job, but to the students the DJ is the best part! There’s a few things you’ll want to consider when looking into who you should hire as your school’s DJ for a dance. My School Dance covered them for you below:

• Price: Many people think that hiring the cheapest DJ is the way to go, but usually that’s never the case. DJ’s should be one of the more expensive expenses for your school’s dance because you want to make sure they’re good and that the students will enjoy them. 
• Experience: You should always ask the company you are potentially going to hire how long they’ve been in business and how many events the DJ has done. You don’t want to hire someone who has only done one event and doesn’t have much experience. It’s always safer to choose someone who knows what they’re doing and does this all the time.
• Social Media Channels: A good thing to look out for is making sure the potential DJ has a few social media channels or a website that showcases their work. A lot of experienced DJ’s will post videos or different events they worked at. This is a great insight into the type of DJ they are. 
• Music: Find out the type of music/genre they usually use. You’ll want to find out if the music is explicit or if they bleep out vulgar words. Another important thing to find out is if the DJ takes requests. A lot of times during dances, students will go and request a certain song. If the DJ doesn’t take requests that’s usually not the best one you’ll want to go with. 
• Equipment: Find out what type/brand of equipment they use. A good DJ will be using a well known name brand for their speakers and other equipment. You want the sound quality to be good and loud enough to fill the whole room. 
• References: Ask the DJ for some references from their most recent event. You can then call up the references and get their opinion on whether they thought the DJ was worth it or not. 

All of these are crucial things to consider when considering your school’s dance DJ. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on a DJ that doesn’t follow up to your criteria. Make sure you’re asking the necessary questions and don’t be afraid to ask them anything.

This may seem like a lot of work, but don’t worry! If you’re managing your school’s dance with My School Dance, you’ll have more time to figure all of this out. If you’re not, sign your school up today for free!

Be sure to check out these articles too for other dance managing tips: How to Create a School Dance Budget, Top 5 Places to get your School Dance Decorations, and 4 Time-Saving Tips for Teachers!

Don’t forget to follow our social media channels too: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656

October 18, 2019

Every school should have an extensive school dance budget. Without having a budget, schools are going to struggle when it comes to the planning process of their dances. Here’s a few steps to consider when creating your school’s dance budget for each event!

1. Potential Dance Income: You need to come together and try to guess how much income your school will make per dance. This will allow you to figure out how much money you can allocate to certain things. You want to have goals for how many students will be attending. You can shoot for 75-80% of your students as a common goal. Look at past dances and see how many students attended and create numbers based on that. 
2. Expenses: Create a list of all of your expenses for the dance. Think about the DJ, food, decorations, entertainment, venue, promotional material, etc. Come up with a general estimate for each topic. 
3. Expenses and How They Contribute: After you’re done with your expense lists, ask yourself how much these expenses actually contribute to the dance. What was the feedback from the last dance? What did the students like/dislike? Do people leave early for reasons such as a bad DJ/food/decorations? 
4. Consistency: Making sure you’re staying consistent with everything is crucial. It’s important to divide your budget up in a logical way. What expense is going to be the most important to the students? Most likely, the answer is going to be the DJ. 

After creating your school’s dance budget, you’ll want to start planning right away. This is smart because expenses book up fast and you will want to make sure that you are booking the expenses that you wanted originally. Nobody wants to settle for their second or third options.

If you use My School Dance as your managing platform, you’ll be able to spend more time figuring out what DJ to get or what decoration theme to go with. My School Dance allows you to save more time and provide a better management process for everyone. Sign your school up today for free!

Want to learn some more dance managing tips? Check out these blog posts: Top 5 Places To Get Your School Dance Decorations, 5 Ways To Increase Student Attendance At Homecoming, and 4 Biggest Event Managing Mistakes People Make! 

Our social channels have some awesome tips too. Check them out here: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,  Pinterest, and Instagram.

October 11, 2019

It’s about that time to start figuring out the type of activities you’ll have at your school’s Halloween Dance! Making sure you have fun activities are a great way to ensure participation and build up attendance at dances. Try out a couple of these Halloween Dance Activities below:

• Monster Freeze– Play a fun Halloween song, like the Monster Mash or the Addams Family theme song. Have students dance to the music as if they’re zombies and once you stop the song, they have to freeze. Whoever doesn’t freeze is out. 
• Relays: Relays are a great way to get students involved. A lot of students are competitive so this would be fun to do, especially with older students. Make it festive by having the students do the relay while straddling a broom!
• Mummy Races: This is always a huge hit! Partner students up in twos and have one be the designated “mummy” and the other be the one who creates the mummy. The one student wraps toilet paper around the mummy. This is a race so the students have to see who can create a mummy the fastest.
• Thriller Dance: Play the Thriller song at your school’s Halloween dance and have the students learn the choreography for it. Take a video for your school’s webpage and social media channels and post it for Halloween!
• Pumpkin Decorating: For the students who don’t like to dance as much, have a pumpkin decorating station open! You can then use the decorated pumpkins as decorations around the school. 

A lot of these activities are easy to do and don’t cost a lot of money! Definitely try out at least one of them for your school’s Halloween dance! Let us know which one was your favorite!

If you need help managing your school’s Halloween dance, sign your school up with My School Dance for free! We’ll help cover all the necessary tasks that come along with managing a school dance. Get festive this season and host a Halloween Dance! 

If you need more dance managing and planning tips check out our other blog posts: Fall Activities For All Ages, Top 5 Places To Get Your School Dance Decorations, and 5 Simple Fall Field Trip Ideas.

Don’t forget to follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

October 4, 2019

It’s officially Spooky Season and you know what that means! Time to bust out all of the fun fall activities for your students to participate in! No need to stop fall activities once students get to middle and high school. There’s activities for all ages! Check out some of My School Dance’s favorite ones below:

Elementary School Students

• Arts and Crafts: Pinterest has thousands beyond thousands of crafty fall activities for your students. Choose which one best meets your classroom needs and go with it!
• Pumpkin/Apple Picking: Visit your local orchard and have students have a fun-filled fall day.
• Fruit Festivals: Check your local area to see when or if there’s a nearby fruit festival going on. Kids will love to visit these.

Middle School Students

• Halloween Play: You can find local theaters that are hosting some type of Halloween/Fall play or musical. Bring your students to one of these! Check with your local high school to see if they’re putting any on too.
• Exotic Animal Farm: If you have one close by this is a big hit with students. Students love to learn about animals and see them in person!
• Fall Scavenger Hunt: Relate the scavenger hunt to the subject you teach. Have students group up and search for specific things.

High School Students

• Giving Back: Work with a local charity and have your students do a volunteer day during the fall holidays.
• Hiking: This is great for any science class. Have your students go to a National Park to hike and learn about the different animal and plant life.
• Halloween Dance: Host a fall-themed dance for your high school students. Make it a costume contest to add more participation!

Having interactive activities is extremely important for all age levels. There’s so many options out there, you just have to explore them! If you want more ideas, always ask your student’s for their opinions too! Once your activity or trip is in place, use My School Dance’s platform to sell your tickets online and use our digital permission slips. This will save you lots of time and energy!

Need more tips relating to school or school events? Read these blogs: 8 Back To School Field Trip Ideas, 4 Time-Saving Tips For Teachers, and 4 Biggest Event Managing Mistakes People Make!

Be sure to give us a like and follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Contact:

Stephanie Hamilton

833-336-8656