Ideas For Teacher and Staff Appreciation

Principals in my district and PLN are always looking to share ideas of how to show our appreciation for our teachers and staff members.  Here are a few of the fun things our Parent Teacher Club (PTC) and I did to help show our Stoneridge staff how much we appreciate them during Staff Appreciation Week.

PTC's theme this year was Dr. Seuss.

Awesome decorations in the staff room.

Some of the things we did cost money, some were completely free.  I am lucky that I have parents that help celebrate our teachers and that we set aside part of the PTC budget for this week.  Even if you don't have the same parent support, I think you can still do a lot of these things and let your staff know how thankful you are for all their hard work.

Dessert day treats

I started the week off by asking students what makes staff members the best.  Using iMovie on iPad is so easy.  Just take the videos and dump them into iMovie and upload it to YouTube.

We do something special each day during the week.  Here is the schedule we had for students. Students were encouraged to:

Monday: Wear your teacher/staff member's favorite color
Tuesday: Bring your teacher/staff member a flower
Wednesday: Write your teacher/staff member a note or poem
Thursday: Bring your teacher/staff member their favorite snack
Friday: Bring your teacher classroom supplies or other fun surprise!

Also every staff member received a framed photo of their class.  We took the pictures during PE so teachers would be surprised.

Framed photo of their class for each teacher.

In our staff room we had food or drinks each day.  Here is the schedule for the food and treats:
Monday: Pink Yink Ink Drinks.  Lemonade, Iced Coffee, Tea provided.
Thursday: Biffer-Baum Breakfast.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for parents to bring in breakfast foods.
Wednesday: Hop On Popcorn Bar.  Different types of Popcorn.  Also parents could bring in $25 gift cards for staff members.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for the gift cards with the hope to get 25-30 gift cards.
Thursday: Who-Feast Luncheon.  We did a Sign-Up Genius for parents to bring in lunch food.
Friday: Who-Treats Dessert Bar.  Desserts for the staff.

Handwritten notes from a student to his teacher.

We have promoted the love of reading more than ever this year, so instead of just giving the gift cards, I put them in books.  Throughout the year I have gone in and read books in the classroom.  I have collected books all year long and gave them away on Wednesday.  Every teacher received a book with a gift card inside.

Now I know some of this seems like it costs a lot of money but the last thing might be what made the teachers feel the most appreciated.  I asked them to fill out a Google form with the name and address of someone special in their life.  I then wrote a handwritten letter to each teacher's special person.  It was fun to let their parent, spouse or child know just how much I appreciate the hard work of each teacher at our school.  Thank you to Todd Nesloney for blogging about the great idea.

Our teachers, librarians, secretaries, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, custodians, aides, cashiers, cooks, meal duty supervisors, and whatever other positions you have on your campus all work so hard.  The staff loved the week and all the hard work by the community.  Parents and students seemed genuinely happy to be able to show our staff how much they appreciate everyone's hard work.  It was a really special week for our school.

Below are some other pictures of the decorations from the week: