Shower Your Teachers with Appreciation

My favorite way to spoil our teachers during Teachers Appreciation Week is to have breakfast and lunch (and dinner if I have a really go-get 'em group of parents in our class) brought into them each day. It starts off with a simple email like this:

"Good evening families! Hope you all had a restful Spring Break and delightful Easter. As you may have heard, next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, where we take a little time to show our teachers how grateful we are for the difference they make in the lives of our children. Instead of collecting money for a class gift, I love arranging for parents to bring in lunch to our teacher each day. Of course you are still welcome to make your own cards or bring in your own little gifts. But if you are interested in signing up to bring coffee and a breakfast treat, or lunch for Mrs. Miller see the opportunities below. I will give Mrs. Miller a stack of menus tomorrow and if you sign up for one of the slots, I will just forward you her order from a local lunch stop. 

Monday coffee and breakfast treat:

Monday lunch:

Tuesday lunch:

Wednesday lunch:

Thursday coffee and breakfast treat:

Thursday lunch:

Friday coffee and breakfast treat:

In years passed, I have had a big enough response to also have sign ups for dinners. If you’d like to do dinner instead of lunch just specify. Thank you SO much for your help with this. It means SO much to our teachers when all of their hard work is recognized. "

While parents are busy signing up, I drop a stack of menus by the teachers desk so that she can pick out her lunches for the week. Then after she's done and gives it back to me, I forward the specific orders along to the parents who volunteered to help. After that, it is up and running. I do send an email out each night of that week saying a special thank you to those who brought in treats and I remind the people who have signed up for the next day…just in case its slipped their minds.

Gifts for Teachers that Kids Love, Too!

There's something about opening up a gift card in front of first graders that just isn't all that exciting. BUT when the gift card comes attached to a card like this, the crowd goes wild! And the leftover candy bars that I DON'T end up using, might just be my favorite part of this tradition.

Candy Bar Card Tradition

My kids have declared candy bar cards the official gift for teacher birthdays. Its a little bit of a challenge coming up with new things to write using the same old candy bars. I know I could probably just do the same script each time...but, I feel compelled to make each one original. Here's the most recent:

T-shirts that Tickle Your Teachers

We have started making t-shirts for special days of the school year. I picked up a handful of white t-shirts from Walmart and a pack of printable iron-on sheets from our local craft store. They are so easy to make. Check out the website and see all the possibilities there are. So far we have made a t-shirt for Valentine's Day and one for Teacher Appreciation Day. My son wears the shirt and then sees how long it takes his teacher to notice the special message he is wearing.

Teacher Gifts- Teacher Appreciation

I sat down to do a post about teacher appreciation gifts and right before I started I browsed through some of my favorite blogs. I found the CUTEST post about teacher appreciations gifts and I'm not even going to try my own. Check out these creative, simple, thoughtful gifts. I will be using them every year! They even give you the printables! Thank you, thank you, thank you Nothing But Country for these adorable ideas. I've listed some of my favorites below. Click the link to see the actual project.

http://www.nothingbutcountry.com/category/holidays-occasions/teacher-appreciation/

Cookies for the Teacher

Other great sites for ideas:
http://www.skiptomylou.org/teacher-appreciation/

Teacher Gifts- End of the year

We have 2 teachers this year, so I was looking for something new that was easy to make twice. I came across the cutest idea on this blog I found:

http://www.beneathmyheart.net/2010/05/inexpensive-yet-meaningful-teacher-gift/



I used her poem (below) and put my own little spin on it. I filled a can from Michael's with any kind of mint candy I could find, attached the poem in the inside, and hung a gift card on the back. I loved that it was filled with sweets to carry around in her purse. I loved the creative poem, and who doesn't love a little shopping spree over summer vacation?

Thanks for your commit-"mint" to help me learn.
Thanks for your encourage-"mint" to always do my best.
Thanks for your involve-"mint" in my life.
Thanks for your invest-"mint" of time and energy     
to make school such a great place to be.
Thanks for making each day an enjoy-"mint".
Thanks for helping to create a nice environ-"mint"     
for me to learn and grow.
Everything you have done this year
    has really “mint” a lot to me!!!

                                                   (poem from www.beneathmyheart.net)

Teacher Gifts- Birthdays

Candy bar cards were a huge hit in my son's kindergarten class this year. I thought they'd be fun for the kids to see since my son doesn't think that gift cards are any fun to get for your birthday. So, I figured the kids would love to see the candy, and the teacher will like the gift card at the end.

The first card I made, I learned that you can spend a fortune on candy bars and not even use half of the ones that you buy. I went to Walmart and the grocery store and initially just bought any candy bar that had a name I thought I could work with. As I sat down to write, I realized I had WAY more than I needed and some of the names that I thought were so clever, sounded a little weird for a birthday card to a kindergarten teacher (Butterfinger, Big Hunk).

 Both teachers were so excited to get their candy bar card. And on my way out the door after presenting the second card, 3 different students came up to ask me if they invited my son to their birthday party, would I make them a candy bar card, too. I had no idea this little project would make my son so   popular!