This is my final hit - I posted one before but continued to receive
great ideas. Thanks to all who contributed; hope many of you will find
some good ideas here.
I asked the faculty and administration to give me the name of their
favorite book they read when they were in school. Everyone participated,
and I did a really nice bullentin board presentation here in the
library. The teachers liked it because the students were going to them
and asking them about their book. Then,in turn, the students were
checking out the books to read, also. Teachers and admin. are all "kids
at heart" and still love the praise and like being the center of
attention-makes me feel good, too! This won't cost a thing!
am an advisor for a service club on campus and two to three times per
year we pick a week and do a Teacher Room Cleanup Project, where we send
a team of two to three students out to a teacher's classroom at a
pre-arranged time - the teachers provide the supplies and the kids work
away! The teachers absolutely love it and the kids get their service
hours and feel great about helping the staff!
What a wonderful thing to do for your teachers! What about doing
something around parent/teacher conferences? I know it is always an
exhausting time of year. You could contact a local spa or massage
therapy place and see if they'll do chair massages and let them pass out
their cards - they may get some great clients out of it! You could make
them dinner or even just provide snacks for the night. Water and
cookies go really fast at our conferences and the teachers are so
appreciative!
Had you thought about having a secret pal? We did it a couple of years
(it became too difficult when we went to a two campus system, 8 miles
apart) and we enjoyed it. You draw names (have a person who is not
participating keep the list of names and who they drew) and each week
bring in a small item for your secret pal. You do have to be careful
that people don't forget. One year the one secretary got almost nothing
from her secret pal (as this woman brought in gifts for all the
administrators). So the next year I got her something every week as a
second secret pal. I had a great time doing it. Garage sales are great
places to pick up things for secret pals. Watch for sales at the end of
seasons.
We also do a Secret Santa a week before Winter Break. One small gift
each day for the first 4 days, and a gift of at least $10 the last day.
Monday, something red, Tuesday, something green, Wednesday, something
made of wood,
Thursday, something that makes noise, Friday, a gift. We've done this
for 17 or 18 years. Not everyone participates, but the ones that do
have a great time.
We've used ideas from Oriental Trading, and done theme inexpensive theme
bags with book marks and a treet, or die cut post-it notes, etc. The
principal offered ice cream coupons from the cafeteria to celebrate
teacher's appreciation day...
Have the jazz choir or some other small musical/vocal group show up at
their classroom to "serenade" them with a silly or inspiring song. We
"rent out" our jazz choir like this for Valentines Day, and it's been a
great fundraiser... We have a "School Climate Committee" that seems
similar to your Cheer Club. Some things we have done are:
Retro Teacher Day - Teachers dress up like a teacher from the past...the
80's, 70's, 20's...we see everything from button covers to cat eye
classes & pearls. We do a million different dress days...Animal, Sport
a Sport, Khaki & Denim...it's amazing how many teachers
enjoy/participate in spirit days that are for teachers only!
Chocolate Day - Always on the Wednesday of State Testing - it is
completely volunteer, everyone brings something chocolate to share and
we meet in the lounge/workroom the 20 minutes before students are
dismissed to class. There are lots of other food days as
well...National Complaint Day is a favorite here - we all bring a food
item to share with a "complaining" name tag, like "Griping Guacamole".
On these days we always meet in the lounge before school.
BOP Time - BOP stands for Bringing Others Pleasure - we do it the last 6
weeks of school. It is very much like a "pay it forward" "random acts
of kindness" thing. You try to do things for other people without them
being able to figure out who did it. People do just about
everything...from decorating a teacher's door to leaving them a candy
bar to writing a note on construction paper. You leave a "You've Been
BOPped" note/sign instead of your name. We pre-print notes that people
can take that say "You've Been BOPped" to help them get started. We
have also done this between Thanksgiving & Christmas and instead of
being BOPped you get "SantaTized."
My school just gave us a paper bag (could be brown or colored), with a
string/ribbon running through two holes punched in the folded top.
Inside the bag was an apple, a small size bottle of water, a couple of
Hersey kisses and a snack bag of animal crackers. Just enough to snack
on for a couple of days and smile each time! Rebecca Richardson St.
James Episcopal Day School Baton Rouge, LA
Salads in Sept; soups stews and breads in Nov; death by chocolate in
February...seems to be a good time for everyone.
There are some great ideas in "If you don't feed the teachers, they'll
eat the students," a book published by the National Middle School
Association. I'm sure it can be ordered online--or borrowed from a
nearby middle school :-)
One thing that someone did at my friend's school was put nice soaps and
lotions in the staff bathrooms! They loved it! Another thing done at
our school for teacher apprec. week was they had students from a massage
school come in and give hand/foot/back massages. They also did some
face scrubs/peels, I think. This could be done during lunch or after
school. At another friend's school, the PTO set up for the staff to go
to a local salon for manicures (I think a PTO mom worked there). Good
luck!
We have had success with various food related treats:
1. Pizza from Pepe's in New Haven, which is most certainly the
world's best pizza.
2. Desserts from a Desserts by David a high-end speciality
manufacturer.
3. Regular potlucks on our half-day faculty meetings.
Generally I have tried to find the best of what was available locally.
I've been at a school where we all got a little "pay-day" candy bar on
pay day
Diane, several times a year our principal puts in $1 Power Ball tickets
- that may be too pricey for you.
Sorry I didn't respond sooner to your LM-Net request--we did a "Time for
Reflection" in the lounge one day--soft music, soft lights, candles or
potpourri melters, chocolate, tea, coffee, soft chair, rocker...
Each teacher got 15 minutes of reflection time in our special
room--everyone loved it and it wasn't an expensive thing at all. Might
be good during test-stress time, etc. We did it when we were writing
our school vision statement, and asked them to take a few minutes out of
their quiet time to jot hopes and dreams for our school
Clip fun cartoons from the newspaper
offer a prize for the first person to guess a riddle
bath salt cubes
tea bags [you suit us to a "tea"]
gift cards to a coffeeshop
spiced nuts [we're nuts about you]
fun post-it notes
a sparkly pencil
Last year someone put a huge bowl of different kinds of mint candy -
Andes, York, those white Lifesavers in individual packages, starlight
mints - in the teachers' lunchroom with a sign "Compli-mints to you!"
There were some other "mint" words, too, but they are escaping my brain
at the moment.
Have you ever used the I AM LOVED buttons. I do it at Valentines time
for my staff. The wonderful part is that they are free. Just a little
note with one of the buttons. Here's the link, if you don't know about
them.
http://www.iamloved.org/
Diane McDaniel, Librarian
South Bosque Elementary
254-761-5720 ext. 6235
diane.mcdaniel@midwayisd.org
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