Teacher Appreciation Week Starts on Monday, May4th

Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4th to 8th, is quickly approaching. The parent group at my school is getting things rockin' and rollin' this week, so we're all set for a great week for these awesome people!

Here's how my to-do list is shaping up if you've been following our parent group's plans:

Today the families at our school are all receiving a note requesting they contribute a food donation towards the teacher's luncheon taking place on May 5th. The note contains suggested foods and parents are to choose their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice of what they'd like to donate. The are also asked to circle a time period they can volunteer to cover the teacher's duties on that day.

I'll be calling and emailing them next week to confirm what I need them to bring and the time and class I'll need them to volunteer with. We have some parents that volunteer each year to cover lunch and/or recess duties for their child's teacher and we get lots of new faces in each year also. This time they give ends up giving their teacher much needed relaxation time and their child is always so, so, so proud to have their parent in their class (It's a short-lived sense of pride before we become an embarrassment to them withe every move we make :) so help out today while you can!)

I'm driving around collecting some wonderful donations of a coupon for each staff member for a free cup of coffee and more small but kind gestures from local businesses

I have received some astronomical quotes for short chair massages, so today I'm calling two smaller reflexologists to see if they might donate their time in exchange for some free publicity.

I have purchased the pens to personalize and printed out decorative paper with the staff person's name with a quote below it: Hope your day is as wonderful as you are!



I went with black Pentel RSVP pens (super easy to open and slide the paper in and also refillable!) and a fun decorative paper inside with their name--none of the fancy-dancy spray painting suggested in the tutorial--to keep things simple. My kids are helping roll these up and put them inside the pens. The love helping out


I'm making some mini-personalized magnets also, see The Cafe's great tutorial on these. So fast, easy and inexpensive...even for 60 staff they're costing me $13.50 total!

Have you thought about how you'd like to appreciate the staff in your school?

Have you decided to go with something generic or are do you have time to do a little detective work to find out the teacher's interests?

Are you going to write a thank you note to the teacher or is your child? If your child is over the age of 8, here are some great guidelines for them on writing a nice thank you.

Now is the time to jot some notes on the following:

How you'd like to show your appreciation, what you'd like to spend, who are the important people involved in your child's education, and is there a group effort that you can donate some time to?

Are you a room parent who is going to coordinate a group gift from the classroom? Group gift ideas for your child's teacher are coming up later today.

If you have some ideas, some discounts to share for teachers or teacher gifts, free things you'd like to donate to my wonderful teachers at my school, questions, or anything else, post a comment or email me at sunshine4teachers@gmail.com.