Teacher Appreciation

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Permalink Reply by Carissa Dollar on July 29, 2009 at 9:13pm

For birthdays, I think that we have usually done something really simple like a card. Sometimes we have done a cake at the beginning/end of the month for all bdays in that month.

We do a luncheon during parent/teacher conferences and get parents to cook and donate food for this meal. We also do this during teacher appreciation week. We usually have a theme for the luncheons - soup and sandwiches, Mexican food, a baked potato bar, Italian food, an "around the world" luncheon, a picnic, a luau, etc.

We do little "mailbox treats' for back to school and for holidays and each day during teacher appreciation week. Small things like a poem with some candy, ink pens or post it notes, mints, tea, hot chocolate packages, etc. We have also done things like a crockpot full of warm apple cider in the lounge during the fall or a tray of donuts, muffins, cookies, etc. in the lounge.

We try to get our fundraiser companies to help us out. We get them to donate cookie dough to bake for the teachers or samples of their products for teacher gifts.

Before winter break we buy little baked goods tins at the Dollar Store and have parents volunteer to bake sweets to fill them.

We did an awards ceremony during teacher appreciation week this year and every teacher got a golden apple award. The kids cheered and screamd for them.....you would have sworn that Zac Efron was on stage! LOL!

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 30, 2009 at 6:13pm

Carissa, what is the golden apple award? Can you explain what the award was and if you had categories or anything like that?

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Permalink Reply by Carissa Dollar on July 30, 2009 at 7:32pm

Our awards ceremony should actually be in the next issue of OUR CHILDREN that you receive from National PTA. :-)

This was the first year that we did this and it was a HUGE hit with both the staff and the kids. Our Principal helped us with the award categories and deciding which award to give to each staff member. We did categories instead of a different name for every single award because we gave EVERYONE from the administrators and teachers all the way to janitors and lunch ladies an award.

I'm trying to remember some of the categories -
* Kiss Your Brain - had to do with offering encouragement and praise in the classroom
* The Lanyap - some Cajun word the staff learned in a training session, had to do with "going the extra mile"
* The "Techno" award - for use of technology in the classroom
* I think one might have had to do with attention to detail
* I'm sure there are several others that are slipping my mind right now.

The gym was all decorated with sparkly silver and gold stars outside and around the stage. We had a "Hollywood" sign on the stage and a red carpet leading up the stairs to the stage. When the kids came in there was a mirror ball going and spotlights doing a ballyhoo over the crowd while music played. NO ONE but the handfull of PTA volunteers, the Principal and the Dean knew what the convocation was going to be about. The teachers were clueless. The kids all sat on the floor in front of the stage and the teachers had chairs around the edges of the crowd.

To start out with, our 2 Teacher Appreciation Chairpeople and I did a little skit. They were tourists who had just arrived in Hollywood and were going along the walk of stars on their way to an awards show. They were mentioning names the kids would know that they saw on the walk (Ashley Tisdale, Hannah Montana, Zack & Cody, etc.) and then I slip out all dressed up as Hannah Montana. The kids went NUTS. Some of them actually thought I was Hannah. We had to pause and wait for them to quiet down to go on!

So after the little skit the Principal joins us and we unveil the table full of golden apple awards and he explains what is happening. We called the teachers up in their groups based on which award they would get. They kids were cheering, chanting the teachers names, reaching out to get/give high 5's as the teachers ran to the stage to get their awards. They felt like rock stars! We got so many comments from the teachers about how much it meant.

After it was over I went out into the crowd as they were leaving and was giving kids high 5's and telling them to thank their teacher today (in the Hannah get-up). A few kids came up to ask if I was really Hannah. LOL!

The actual awards were fake apples (I forget if they bought foam or plastic) which had been fixed onto a tile base. The bases were painted black and had a nice glossy coat over them. The apples had been spray painted gold and were hand-lettered with the award name on them.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 30, 2009 at 9:19pm

This sounds so awesome...what a great idea. TFS

I would love to do some type of awards ceremony for our teachers and staff for teacher appreciation week. Will have to put on my thinking cap. Thanks again for the idea

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Permalink Reply by Monica Briggs Anderson on August 6, 2009 at 1:04pm

I am a new PTA president and my husband and I have been members since our daughter started school. This is the best concept that I have come across. Thanks for sharing the idea!

For Teacher Appreciation, we have provided lunch at the end of the week and a mail box treat each day. Seems pretty standard!

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 30, 2009 at 6:12pm

We plan to step ours up a little this year. Last year the hospitality committee (person) did mailbox treats for holidays and I think did two dinners. I'm not sure what else was done.

Sorry i'm not much help.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Rees on August 6, 2009 at 7:00pm

We had room parents coordinate a daily gift for the teach, with students bringing in something small each day: Flower (room parent collected flower from each student and put in Dollar Store vase), Fruit basket (we had several extra baskets to donate between the parents and students each brought in a piece of fruit), Recipe box (each student brougt in a favorite recipe on a provided recipe card - room parent put in small basket, box, whatever was readily available - some included spices), Snack basket (each student brought in a favorite snack), and Handwritten card (each family was encouraged to write a thank you note). Having a theme each day really helped!

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Hanson on October 19, 2009 at 1:35pm

Jennifer R, What great ideas. What else do ya got? I am the Hospitality chair and I cant seem to get my creative juices flowing. I am doing Halloween bags full of candy for a staff of 120 for this week. How can I make that more special and different and better, but on the cheap???????????Any ideas or links I should look at?

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Permalink Reply by Randee Rudick on October 19, 2009 at 10:24pm

We have purchased $25 gift certificates to Restaurant.com for $2 each.
We put this gift certificate inside their birthday card.
We have put instructions on the back of how to select a restaurant from the website, then they return the g/c to the PTA.
One of our members (me) then prints the certificate and returns it to them.
(We do it that way so that each teacher doesn't have to sign up for the website and get bombarded with e-mails from Restaurant.com)

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Permalink Reply by Stacey Carroll on March 12, 2010 at 10:44am

I heard that one of our local schools does an adopt a teacher program as a part of their staff appreciation committee where the families adopt a staff member whom they will give monthly treats to in addition to the staff appreciation committee luncheons/breakfasts/mailbox treats.

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