Teacher Appreciation Week - San Rafael,CA

We are decorating my son's classroom door. I think it will be fun for his teacher to come in Monday moring to find a door filled with "thank you" cards.

How about for one of the days having the kids come in greeting her with a compliment? Easy, quick and sweet. Also, you could ask them to wear her favorite color on the other day, nice way to bring the group together.

I'm a preschool teacher, and here are some things that stand out to me.
Some feedback:

Love the flower idea.
Love the card idea.

Really unsure about the 'go buy something' ideas. Some families are not going to get it together enough to make this happen for their kids, and some families don't have the money right now.

Other ideas:

I think another idea might be for each child to bring a photo of themselves-- most families will have one of these.

One day, the children could sing something sweet for the teacher: You are My Sunshine or something along that line.

You could have each child contribute one small "Something I Like about Ms. So and So" and type them up; have the children read them aloud.

Have fun! It's very sweet of you to organize this.

Appreciating your teacher is great, but having something for 5 days in a row is too much. And it is too much to ask of the parents in my opinion.

Tell each child to send in one of their class pictures. you will then put them in the center of a flower that you make out of construction paper and a stick which you then plant into a clay planter with florist foam at the bottom and top off with some green rafia grass. So it turns out looking like a flowerpot with the kids as the flowers. They did that for our teacher last year and it was awesome. You could put a note on it that thanks her for helping them 'grow'.
You could also get a large sheet of paper that would cover the door and go in at lunch or recess or art and have each kid make a note or drawing to her...then sneak in after school and affix it to the door for when she gets in the next am. Or decorate the door in any other way. Some people at our school even hang Christmas lights!

If you have a paint your own pottery place around you they are always good for ideas. One year we took a plate and got all the kids fingerprints and made them into ladybugs and put their names under it. The pottery place lent us the paints and we did it during lunch. Turned out super cute.

I hate to say it but your parents might gripe about all that you are asking to bring in...I think ours probably would. Good ideas though. You can also go to the PTO Today website for teacher apprecitaion ideas.

Each child could bring a piece of fruit to make a fruit basket?

I agree about the money thing. My child is not in that class and even I gasped at your gift card idea. Don't get me wrong. I support my child's teacher and even supply her with things like paper and goodies for the the treasure chest but when someone directly ask me someone that isn't the teacher. Look out! If you really want to list that then make that an additional option if someone doesn't or can't comply with any other things listed. I think for teachers since they have around 20 or more students that is approx 100 things by the end of the week if people did something every day. I think that is why parents don't want to do something all the time. It adds up.

what about the trusty apple (or any fruit) for the teacher

dress like your teacher day or find out what her favorite color is and they can all wear something that color.

the children I nanny for brought home a note about teacher appreciation day at there school. this is what they had on the list

monday bring a decorated flower (the flower's outline were copied on a copy machine and sent home last week to be decorated. the kids were to color them and then attach to a stem of their choice my charges used papertowel tubes which they covered with green construction paper and made leaves also to attach. teacher will display these in the classroom to brighten her day thru the week.

tuesday bring a snack and book to share with the class during break time. (something healthy please that does not need heating/ or forks / spoons. the book should be your own favorite to share from home)

wednesday wear the teachers favorite color

thursday write the teacher a poem

friday bring the teacher a treat

on the paper it also had a list of her favorite things
color, snacks, treats, places she likes to eat, stores she likes to shop but no where did it say please bring in a gift card. of course that would be the reason to include stores and places to eat but it didn't spell that out.

what are the other classes doing? At our school, the room parents together decided to help keep things 'equal' (and manageable for students and parents) by having each student bring in a flower some time during the week for their teachers, classroom assistants, and the front office (there will be vases in each classroom and at the office for the flowers) and then another parent has organized parent volunteers throughout the school to contribute food items for a teacher breakfast on monday, lunch on wednesday, and afternoon tea on friday. IMO trying to have each student *bring* something every day of the week would be difficult , but perhaps you could still have some sort of "acknowledgment" every day by doing something like:
-bring flower one day
- card/picture one day
- have kids put a handprint on a poster board and put each child's name under his/her handprint and at the top write something like "A big hand for [teacher's name]"
- have each child bring in a photo of themselves and put them in a collage frame
- maybe a lunch potluck one day
-
-

I realize this isn't what your looking for, however, I always hated feeling like I was required to give a gift or make a donation. My children have had some great teachers thoughout the years, and I made sure they were thanked, but it was my choice. They've also had a few ok teachers, and even one that was horrendous.

You may really appreciate your child's teacher and think that this is a great thing to do. However, you need to realize that other parents may not feel the same. Many other parents may not be in a position to do this, they may not have the money (yes in today's ecomony an extra $5 or $10 makes a huge difference for some) or the time to go shopping. (Does every child in the class have a garden? Would some of the parents need to purchase a flower?)

Asking each child to make a card or draw a picture is a fantasic idea.

At my daugthers old school they had the teacher right something she liked every day of the week like her favorite color, favorite flower, favorite food, favorite store, favorite thing to do, favorite subject. and then every day the kids brought stuff another year they just took up a collections if you wanted you could give 5 dollars or if not you could do something on your own.,

I'm an elementary school teacher, and my classes have done something like this the last few years. This is always a fun week, and since I am on maternity leave this year, I'm sad to miss it. I don't think a lot of parents realize how much time teachers dedicate to their students. Even on maternity leave, I'm still planning for school and checking in with my class periodically. I spend many evening, weekends, and a lot of time during the summer working on things for my classroom and students. Little things that parents and students do to show their appreciation are so appreciated.

A couple of no cost ideas--have the K. all dress in the teacher's favorite color. Then you can take a group picture and give it to the teacher. Have the K. bring in a used book from home to donate to the class library. My favorite one--the year I had my son (my first), my class made cards for my son telling him special things about their teacher (his mom). I will save those forever!

Does everyone participate? No, and that's perfectly fine. Teachers don't expect anything from anyone. The year my room parent asked for used books, a family actually donated two boxes of books. Some of them were baby/toddler books for my son--and are still some of his favorite books today.

A couple other ideas that might involve $$--bringing a snack for the teacher (a granola bar, apple, pack of gum, etc.), a school supply (pack of stickers, note pad, etc.)

You probably know whether or not you are in a community where most people could participate. When communicating this with parents, just be sure to say that it's optional so that those who cannot or don't want to, don't need to.

We've had chocolate day (all kinds of chocolate goodies were sent in), breakfast goodies, donations of office supplies, flower day, and others that I'm forgetting. These were done for us on a whole school level. As for the comment about something each day, our parents have never had issues with doing something daily. Some choose to "appreciate us", others don't. Either way, it's fine.

how about signing up to help for an hour in the classroom? or to take some work/projects home to work on to help out the teacher? like some cut and paste things, or making flashcards or something?

What a great idea this has never been an option at my sons school we do however from the PTO cater a lunch for the teachers/staff.And me as a parent that appreciates the hard work a teacher does for her class i'll send a gift of some sort.
All I see is money in your ideas,really nice if the issues we have weren't really hitting home with loss of employment & the high rising gas prices lots of families can not do this as they are living on very strict budgets.
Flower is good~Card/picture the students did at home then brought the next day~Poem titled Why I liked the first grade~Fruit from each child is a great idea to make a basket~wear the colors of her favorite sports team
the other small pampering item or $5.00 gift card it has to be one or the other

My child's school does a staff appreciation week. They have a budget of $450 from the PTO that get supplemented heavily by the school.

Monday - Breakfast for the staff
Tuesday- Snacks for the staff
Wed- lunch
Thurs- Desserts
Friday- parents are going to wash the cars for the teachers.
Since it is a multi-cultural theme, we are asking parents to bring in a specialty dish from their culture.
We are trying to figure out how to do a "pass port" for each teacher. Put the child's picture on the page and ask them to write a thankyou or something they like about the teacher.
We were thinking of asking the child to send in a $1-$2 and giving the teacher a gift card to a mexican, chinese, italian etc... restaurant with the passport.
Last year they were able to have someone come in an donate their time to do hand massages for the teachers during their lunch. etc...

My daughter's preschool does this and one day was "Give your teacher a hug day." We also contribute a couple of $$s for a luncheon for the teachers and there's a bring a flower from your garden day too. I don't like the pampering item idea, the teacher will end up w/ too much stuff and may not want to use any of it. Washing the car is a great idea. And the decorate a paper flower is cute too as is decorating the classroom door, any of the things the kids help make or get involved in teaches more than having the parents buy something.
Good luck and have fun with it!

We just finished our teacher appreciation week last week. Many of the things we did were organized by the PTA, so there was some continuity amongst the teachers - decorating the door with thank you pictures drawn by the kids, a pot luck lunch, washing the teachers car, & one day each class brought a basket for their teacher filled with things he/she likes. We asked parents to contribute a few dollars. This helped with purchasing items for the basket. We also did the flower bouquet & brought in breakfast & coffee one day. For our basket, we bought a scrapbook and xeroxed a paper for each child to write their favorite thing about the teacher and draw a picture. The paper was framed with crayons and on the top it said "My favorite thing about Ms. U is". The book turned out so cute. We also put a starbucks gift card, an insulated mug with a picture of the class and some sweets. We didn't spend that much - one of us had an extra basket from Easter, we got a huge box of candy from Costco that we split for part of the end of the year gift, & used coupons for everything else but the gift card and that was minimal. FYI, as far as the flowers, it will be nice to have a few extra on hand for the kids who's parents forget.