Been asked to help organize one for the elementary school. Never been to one. School has never held one. Total blank slate. Any ideas or suggestions? Soup to nuts I welcome ideas re: decor, food, entertainment, dessert, bar selections (pto runs a cash bar for the parents), invitations etc.
Thanks
The PTO Today website has some great ideas and tool kits for organizing. I would avoid the father/daughter, mother/son name and go with something more generic like “family dance,” “sweeheart dance,” or “spring fling” etc. as the last thing you would want to do is make children with non-traditional families feel excluded.
Ours was around Valentine’s day so it was the Sweetheart Dance. When you have it will influence the decor - January would be wintery, February is Valentine’s day so red/white/pink, March you could do either early spring or maybe St. Patrick’s Day if that’s big in your area (call it the “Lucky to have you” dance), etc.
Part of planning is figuring out if it’s a fundraiser or just an event. If it’s just an event, you’ll want to keep ticket prices and costs low (charge just enough to cover costs), so I would get a DJ, simple decorations like colored table cloths, streamers, balloons and simple centerpieces. Have families donate desserts and buy some pre-packaged allergy-friendly desserts for kids who need those. If it’s early enough in the evening to overlap with dinner time, then you’ll have to offer real food. It can be included in the ticket price if that’s easier or be for sale separately. We usually stick with pizza to feed a crowd because it’s cheap and easy but sometimes you might get a local restaurant or caterer who can do something more interesting on a tight budget in exchange for advertising. If it starts later, at around 7 PM, then you can just do snack foods - chips, goldfish crackers, maybe some cheese/fruit/veggies trays, popcorn.
If it’s a fundraiser, you’ll need to price accordingly to make a profit and then include food (again, with the ticket priced to profit even with food) or sell it separately at a markup. For a fundraiser, it’s nice to also have games, a silent auction or raffle baskets as those can bring in money too.
I honestly wouldn’t serve alcohol at a school event with children. Our events are all booze-free unless they’re adult only. One of the sports teams in my town does a family party fundraiser with a cash bar and it’s a nightmare. Parents gather around the bar, toss a few back and seem to forget that they have children, who basically run around unsupervised. It’s so bad that I buy a ticket and don’t go. If this is the norm for your school though or people are really committed to having a bar, stick with beer and wine only. I don’t know if you’re in a public or private school but a public school will have all kinds of hoops to jump through for this. Even at a private school, in my town you would need a one-day liquor license, a trained bar tender, and would have to meet other requirements to serve even beer and wine.
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JB has great suggestions. I agree to the part about alcohol. We’ve been to events with alcohol and kids and parents forget about the kiddos. Where it’s a school, I would guess you wouldn’t serve it, so probably not a concern.
I just wanted to echo her point of if you can avoid calling it mother/son father/daughter (somehow make it more generic) all the better. When our schools have worded it too precisely, it’s caused confusion when kids didn’t have those specific people in their lives and then they opted out altogether to avoid embarrassment.
My first piece of advice is to not call it a mother/son father/daughter dance. What about the daughter with a single mom and no dad in the picture? The son who’s mom died of breast cancer? The kids living with grandparents? The daughter with two moms? There are so many non-traditional families out there. Try to be as inclusive as possible with the name of the dance.
Other than that, I’d plan it around Valentine’s day and use the holiday decorations that you can find anywhere.
For music, I’d go with a DJ - make sure you talk to him in advance to find out what audience he/she typically caters to. We have one here that specializes in finding non-explicit versions of current pop songs for children’s parties.
ETA: JB’s advice is perfect.
Since you live in NYC (as I do also) I am just a bit surprised that anyone at the school would have suggested calling the dance that name - unless it’s a private/religious school - NYC public schools are usually more sensitive to “gender” and “sexuality” and “family” rather than to assume that a girl wants to dance with her father or has a father or identifies as a girl, etc etc.
So - I think you should start by suggesting a re-working of the basic concept of the dance!
After that, finger foods and cookies and “mocktails” are probably a good idea (you could even look online for fun nonalcoholic “mocktail” recipes).
I think calling it a Family Dance Party is a great idea. Make sure that you publicize it in a clear way. Students may invite a parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt, adult sibling, or special family friend to accompany them to the dance.
I once helped plan a parent and child party, and one of the co-planners had a great idea that worked well. During the party, in order to give the adults a break or allow them to enjoy a glass of wine or a beer from the cash bar, there was entertainment just for the kids. All the kids were invited to come sit in a special area and a fabulous magician/family-friendly comedian entertained them with tricks and jokes, for about 20 or 25 minutes. After he put on his show, he left and the kids rejoined their parents. The parents appreciated the time to socialize and it was fun to hear the kids laughing.
Our school does father daughter type dance in February and the mother son one in may. So they are smaller groups. They have pizza, cookies and punch. A dj plays the music, they do raffle drawings several times during the dance. for themes the february one is red and pink hearts. The one in may is silver and blue stars.
They have a photographer to take pictures in front of the backdrop and parents can pay to have that done (it’s 5$ for one picture in a cardboard frame)
and they keep it short. Like hour and half and done. The kids aged are kinder thru second grade and parents appreciate that it’s done and over before bedtime
I’m on the committee for our local daddy/daughter dance for girls (baby - high school age) & their father figure escort . Here are some random thoughts. Last year we changed the name to “Cinderella Ball” rather than daddy/daughter dance so that girls would feel more comfortable bringing an uncle, grandpa, family friend, etc… the event is intended for girls & their father figure escort.
Ours lasts from 6-9 and only includes finger foods & water. We have found that drinks WILL be spilled on the girls & on the floor so punch, lemonade, soda are much harder to clean up than water. Finger foods that are easy such as veggies + dip, chips, fruit, meat & cheese (the dads really like this), and desserts do very well. We are eliminating cupcakes this year & sticking with cookies because the younger girls frequently got icing from the cupcakes on their dresses and there was frustration with that.
We have very simple decorations such as glass bowls with colored stones & rocks, electric candles, and flowers.
We have a professional photographer come and set up, she offers different packages that they can order. This year we are setting up a photo booth area with props. We also usually have a couple moms wondering around taking candid photos throughout the evening.
New this year we will have about 15 different moms & college age girls dressing up as different princesses & characters. They will all be wondering around for photos and to help keep an eye on the girls.
We have a professional DJ that donates their time completely free of charge and is great about choosing a good mix of songs for fun dancing, more slow dancing, as well as from different eras so there is a great mix.
In years past we would have the different families sign up to bring food & never charged anything or even accepted donations. Last year we began accepting donations and had enough to “gift” the DJ & pay for the rental of the school as well as set some back for this year. Now we won’t be asking the families to bring food, we will just purchase it all & accept donations again.
It’s a great event that has grown from a handful of families when it first began to over 250 people last year.
Hope you have a great time!
Is it a two in one event? Ours were separate, for father daughter dance the girls and dads dressed up, we had a photo booth and DJ (plenty of both popular/top 40 songs and silly songs, like the chicken dance.) Small corsages were available if ordered ahead of time, some games were played, like the limbo, and there was a craft station. For the mother son event it was a game night in the gym, dodgeball (moms vs. sons was the main event) plus a photo booth and some other games and a DJ playing mostly silly songs, not as much dancing. Of course plenty of punch and party snacks for both, though the girls’ party tended on the fancier side and they boys’ was more casual like pizza and pigs in blankets. At both we had plenty of balloons, steamers and confetti and a dessert bar with mini cupcakes and cookies, brownies, etc. Have fun!!!
ETA: in response to what some of the others are saying, our invites specifically spelled out “for you and your special guy, or gal” and we had a nice turnout of grandparents, aunts/uncles and even older siblings for the kids of single parents. We made it very clear that it was not only mothers and fathers that were invited 
Might be better to just do a parent/child dance.
It seems no matter what you do - there’s a kid who has no mother or father and it should be fine for the kid to show up with anyone.
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