Teacher Pamper Yourself Gift

During the week of May 6th, our school celebrated teacher appreciation week. In my last post, I shared some of the gifts I gave. Our school's PTO sent out suggestions on how to celebrate our teachers and one of their ideas was to send in something sweet. So, on a separate day, I sent in something sweet with my kids to give to their teachers.

Here is my choice for something sweet along with a little poem I came up with to try to tie it all together. 

I included for each of our teachers, an emery board, nailpolish, tissues, and their favorite candy that I wrapped with scrapbook paper to help tie the colors together a little. I added strawberry and fruit stickers and put everything together in a plastic strawberry container. It's just a simple gift that I think can also be useful. This would be a great gift for anybody! : )

Teacher gifts for Teacher Appreciation or End-of-Year

I really look forward to thanking our teachers during teacher appreciation week. I love thinking of and looking up fun ways to show how much we appreciate what they do for our children's lives. I'll just post some pics of what I did this year and add a little detail. I hope you find something here that inspires you to create something for your teachers. : )

Class gift. I like coordinating a class gift when I'm a room parent. I e-mailed parents for one class and sent letters home for the other asking for a $2 donation so we can purchase a class gift. I asked that they send their donation to me in an envelope via their child's homework folder. All the donations made it safely home to me and we were able to purchase a couple of really nice gift cards for each teacher.

Now onto the gifts from me and my family. For the "specials" teachers, such as the gym teacher, art, and music teacher, a couple other mothers and I pitched in and purchased $10 gift cards to Subway and one to Applebees. I couldn't afford to get everyone a gift card, but it helps to find other parents who are thinking the same way. A $2 or $3 dollar gift card doesn't look like much, but a $10 one does! : ) Teamwork! I packaged the gift cards with some packaging I designed. 

I also gave a $5 gift card to Subway to the school secretary and the principal. Along with the gift card, I designed personalized stationery for them and packaged with my polka dot design. I made a bag topper and mini chocolate bar wrappers to match.

Here's another picture of the gift card with chocolates. 

This one below was for our AR teacher. I get her something small each time a holiday comes around. Like I said, I can't afford a gift card for everyone, but I at least want them to know they're appreciated, so she got a few extra chocolates. 

Below are gifts for our "main" homeroom teachers who have our kids most of the day. I planned a break for our teachers and coordinated volunteers to take over their classroom for a half hour while they enjoyed a brief get together with their peers -- more on that later. The activity I had planned was to have the students write down why they love their teacher. I designed a cover label and pages for the kids to fill out and draw a picture on as well. Then put all the pages from the students in a binder for our teachers. I did this for my son's and daughter's teachers. 

This is the binder for my daughter's teacher:

A sample of the pages that went inside:

This is the binder for my son's teacher:

Then, I designed and printed stationery for each teacher: 

I also decorated a letter for each teacher. I painted the ends that would show and I used mod podge to glue the string all around. It was harder than I thought to go around a letter C. The rounded edges are tricky! : ) Once the string was on, I embellished with letters for her name and a couple of owls. 

back:

I made a card for each teacher, too. This one is for my daughter's teacher. If you haven't noticed, she likes owls. I had fun decorating with them. 

I also raided her Pinterest sayings board and found a quote she liked. I made it into a magnet and created a little pocket inside the card to hold it in. 

Here's the magnet. I printed the saying on my computer and used mod podge to adhere it to a small wooden block that I purchased at Hobby Lobby. I then attached a magnet to the back. I have to say, I just love that little pocket!! 

Here's the letter for my son's teacher: 

Here's the card I made for her. I really love how it turned out. 

Here's her quote magnet that I made. I also raided her Pinterest board for ideas -- that is a great way to find out what someone likes by the way! 

I tried to make each teacher feel appreciated without giving them the same  ol' apple-themed items. I like those as well, but I figured they probably already had enough of those things. 

How do you show your teachers you appreciate them?  

Kids' lunches

Yes, I'm "that mom" who makes fun little shapes for my daughter's sandwiches. Actually, I think a lot more parents are doing this. I'd make them for my son, but he only eats soup. No sandwiches for him. Oh, and my daughter only eats jelly on hers. See? I had to get creative somehow! They don't give me much to work with - those little picky people! But, they're my people and I love them of course!!

Here's a sampling of how I get creative with her sandwiches. Sometimes, they're shaped like butterflies, but other times they're shaped like...

{Pigs}

Don't just stop at the shape. Draw on the sandwich bags with a Sharpie for some added fun for you or the kids...or you. 

And, here's the butterfly. See, my daughter is normal afterall. I might not be, but I think she enjoys my drawings. 

Have fun with your kids's lunches! We only have a few more weeks before summer so I'm going to make the most of it! Happy Packing!

Class Pet

My daughter's teacher told us about the time they had a turtle for a class pet. They weren't allowed to keep him anymore and gave him away to one of the students.

Ever since then, I thought about how sad it is that they don't have a pet anymore. So I wanted to come up with something. I know they can't have a real live pet. I know her teacher likes and decorates her classroom with owls. So armed with those two pieces of information I came up with the ultimate (echo echo) class pet (echo echo)!! Ok, maybe not ultimate, but maybe clever?

Just add water and voila!

I decorated a mason jar:

I bought the owl at Hobby Lobby. It will grow to be 600 times it's size. My kids love these things! 

I also made one for my son's class. 

They didn't used to have a pet, but I thought they still might enjoy this anyway. 

Room Mom Reading Series - Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed

Okay, maybe it's just me, but I love these cookies I made this time for my Room Mom Reading Series snack. They were like my little pets.

Many of you know of Mo Willems. He writes brilliantly hilarious books for children like "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and the Elephant and Piggies series. My mission is to buy every book. We have a lot, but we need more! Those I just mentioned are his most popular from what I gather anyway, but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find the one I'm going to talk about in this post.

Our family took a trip to the Good Zoo at Oglebay Park in West Virginia about three years ago. Actually we go every year, but this particular visit stands out in my mind as the first time my daughter saw mole rats at the zoo.

She saw the mole rats and then. she fell. in. love.

That's right. She thought they were adorable!! I think ewww! But, she can see the beauty in just about anything that's not.

After that, I was determined to find anything about naked mole rats. I found a stuffed animal naked mole rat on Amazon and while looking there, I was lucky to find this book by Mo Willems - "The Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed".

Are you kidding me?? It couldn't be more perfect! How could I have not known about it before then! The book is about a naked mole rat named Wilbur (name is also perfect) who likes to get dressed. Adorable!

Now, three years later, my 6-year-old daughter still loves them so I picked this book to read to her 1st grade class for my room mom reading series. I also brought along a picture of an actual mole rat. I was surprised to find out only 3 of the 24 students in her class had seen one. I guess they learned something that day. They may not be happy about not getting the image of the naked mole rat out of their minds, but they learned something new. Just kidding. They did say "ewww a lot, though."

Here's the pic I showed them: 

See what I mean about the ewww part? 

Source: http://extremelongevity.net/wp-content/uploads/naked-mole.jpg

Ok. Moving right along. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of these photos: 

Here's a picture of the book along with one of the Wilbur sugar cookies I made. Do you they look like him? I used a deliciously yummy sugar cookie recipe from a friend of mine, then tinted white canned icing (after adding some powdered sugar to the can) with one drop of red food coloring. I used miniature marshmallows for the teeth. I cut them in half and then in half again (in fourths for those of you who are better at fractions than I am). I also bought black icing and squeezed it into a sandwich bag. I snipped a tiny hole in the corner and squeezed dots for the eyes. 

I made a coloring sheet for the class. Here's a picture of everything for that day, including the picture my daughter colored of Wilbur. 

Maybe you can find a place that has mole rats on display near you and make a day of it! Bake some "Wilbur" cookies, read the book and talk about your new friends, the mole rats. Believe it or not, they are pretty amazing creatures. 

Also, you might want to check out more of Mo Willems here and here. You're welcome. ; )

Easter Gifts for Teacher, Staff and Students

For Easter this year, we gave our teachers and staff candy. My kids also gave treats to their classmates. We tried to make it look pretty.

Here's what we gave their classmates -- Peeps on a stick. I saw a similar version of this on Pinterest, but with four peeps instead of just one. I thought four would be way too many to provide to almost 50 students between their two classes, so we just did one per stick. I think they turned out pretty cute! I even had a staff member ask to take a picture of them. Too funny! : ) 

Here's what we gave the teachers and staff. I used pretzel treat bags and cut scrapbook paper to size. I used the scrapbook paper as a background for the candy. Once everything was put in the treat bag, I folded the top down, punched two holes and used ribbon to attach a tag. In retrospect, I wish I would have used maybe Snickers eggs because their wrappers were blue. These Reese's (although extremely yummy) just weren't that pretty for for display. It's the thought that counts! : )

Administrative Professionals Day Ideas (Teacher appreciation, too)

Hi there! I was looking at my calendar and noticed that Administrative Professionals Day is coming up on April 24th. Have you celebrated your school's secretary lately? The 24th will be a good day to do it!

Here are a couple ideas:

This is something I made last year for one of our teachers (for more teacher appreciation ideas, check out here here, here, here and here), but you could also make one for the secretary.  It's a pasta sauce jar that I cleaned up and wrapped with yarn. Just add flowers! I added a package of seeds as well to mine last year, but that's because we knew our teacher liked sunflowers and gardening.

Or something quick and easy. Wrap a candy bar with pretty scrapbook paper , add a tag and a bow: 

If you know they like to garden, here's another idea. I bought the container at Target for $1 last year. I thought it was cute and knew I could use it for something some day. So, while at Target the other day, that someday was finally here. I found these garden stake labels there, bought some seed packets and put together a small, but cute gift. 

I wrapped the seed packets around the stakes using burlap ribbon. 

I added some fake grass and put all together in the planting container with a burlap ribbon to finish. 

Maybe this will give you some ideas!