An Appeal to Middle School

This week, sign ups went out for Winter enrichment classes: crunch time to see if there is enough interest for the board game club to launch. I only need 7 students to sign up, but there's a lot of competition for these kids' attention. The club takes place on Fridays; I wonder, would most students want to just go home after school or stick around for another activity? Also, popular classes like pickleball run at the same time, plus D&D club is on the same day which may draw adjacent interest.

I bumped the club one more time to my own students in last Friday's weekly newsletter to parents, and hung-up some posters around the school (following suit of some other clubs that did the same).

Level-Up Board Game Club poster that I hung up around campus.

My last bit of marketing for the week was an appeal to the middle schoolers (whom I interface with the least) on campus at their weekly Town Meeting. This is a sort of wrap-up come-together event at the end of every Friday to bookend their week with important announcements, events, etc. Honestly, I was a little nervous addressing a gymnasium full of pre-teens, given I'm a second grade teacher. I was on their turf, crashing their meeting. But I think my pitch went well, and hopefully my commitment to "good vibes only" and promise of snacks hit home.

I'm fairly confident that I'll have enough interest in the club to launch, so it's not a question of if I'll have students, but which students will register. I have opened the club to 2-8 grade, which is a large developmental range. The games I bring, discussions I facilitate, and overall look and feel of the club could vary greatly if it trends towards primarily younger, or older, or a reasonable admixture of students. Next week I should get a roster and be able to plan more.