PTO Today

Here at PTO Today, we’ve been talking about Teacher Appreciation Week for months. In my particular role, I have read and posted countless articles and file exchange printables with amazing suggestions for honoring teachers, ranging from detailed and creative creations and events like school-supply “cakes” and theme luncheons, to quick and easy tags to attach to small gifts.

Unfortunately, none of this information made its way to my life outside of work. In an example of “the cobbler’s children go unshod,” I had not given time or thought to how to mark the week for my son’s teacher (I’m the room parent) until, oh, about three days before the week was starting. I hadn’t participated in any planning in the past, and it must have just slipped my mind. After that panicked realization, I sent a quick email to my co-room mom to which I hastily added a couple of links to some of the articles I’d spent so much time looking at, and asked for her thoughts.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend what followed: a plea to the parents on our email list to send a contribution (if they wished) to the classroom within two days (they responded amazingly); a last-minute phone call to a local businesswoman and friend who sells lovely handmade soap; and a race to some local stores to get our teacher some gift cards, one for lunch and another for classroom supplies. By the time I put the soaps, the cards, and some chocolates in a nice bag and brought it to the school, I was all but panting.

But you know what? She loved it all, and especially, I could tell, the effort and acknowledgment. It really means a lot to them, which is my takeaway from the whole experience.

Next time I would certainly like to be more creative, or organized, or at least timely. But it’s also reassuring to know that for teachers, no effort is too small or hastily assembled. It’s truly the thought that counts.

This week, we asked our community on both Facebook and the Message Boards to tell us what their teachers most enjoy receiving as a teacher appreciation gift. As always, parent group leaders came through when asked for help, and they provided lots of creative ideas. Not surprisingly, many had to do with food (who can resist treats?) and pampering (wouldn’t you love a massage?). Of course, these are just the kinds of gifts hardworking teachers love­—and deserve!

Here’s a roundup of what was shared:

• Guilt-free fun: Fiesta-theme luncheon with an alcohol-free margarita machine.

• Time to soothe: Hand lotion with an attached tag that reads, “Thanks for keeping our kids in good hands!”

• To die for: Chocolate fountain buffet with “anything and everything’’ you could dip in chocolate.

• Who’s feeling lucky? Weeklong prize giveaways, with one winner announced each day. Winner picks her prize from a selection of gift cards.

• Our turn: An extended lunchtime for teachers while parents cover for them in the cafeteria.  

• Healthy harvest: A lunchtime salad bar with homemade bread.

• Kick-start your day: Coffee and smoothie cart provided by a local vendor, set up at school by 7:15 a.m. Teachers pick from a variety of flavors.

• Comfort food: A homemade breakfast served to the teachers to wrap up teacher appreciation week.

• How cool: Purchase a fan for each classroom and present it with a tag that says “We are your greatest fans!”

• Relax: Spa Day at the school with free massages and aromatherapy.

• Here’s my to do list: Parent volunteers run errands for teachers on a special Valet Day.

• Have a seat: Renovate the teachers lounge with new items, such as new chairs.

• Carryall: Duffel bags with the school logo for each teacher.

• Secret supper: Mystery dinner in the cafeteria. Decorate using a particular theme, and keep it on the down low until the transformed area is revealed to the teachers.

• Not just for kids: Goody bags with items like pens and post-it notes given at a luncheon.

• On the run: A “to go” light breakfast of yogurt, granola bars, and bottled water. Teachers can easily bring it back to the classroom.

• Simply said: Each child gives the teacher a flower and tells her why he or she thinks the teacher is special.

• I’ll have the turkey club: A $5 gift card to local sandwich shop.

• Special delivery: Volunteers walk the hallways with a dessert and punch cart, offering sweets to teachers.

• Flower power: Give “Lunch on Us’’ bouquets, a mix of flowers and gift cards.

• Money bags: Teachers pick a bag of chocolate coins, not knowing there’s a secret stash of real money mixed among the chocolates (anywhere from $5 to $50).

• Supply day: Each child is encouraged to bring in one school supply (a glue stick, wipes, a pack of pencils) to the teacher.

• Working at the car wash: While teachers are treated to a lunch, volunteers secretly wash their cars in the school parking lot. 

• Best memory: Children make drawings for the teacher illustrating their favorite moment of the school year.

• Thank-you wall: Put up a large piece of paper (poster board would work) on the classroom wall and have children sign it, expressing their thanks.

TeacherLists.com likes a good makeover. That’s one reason why it’s been helping schools get their supply lists into the 21st century by giving teachers an easy online platform to create, update, and share lists.

Now TeacherLists.com is taking the makeover concept to a whole new level with its $5,000 Teachers’ Lounge Makeover contest. Every school that posts 20 new or updated school supply or wish lists to the site between April 1 and Aug. 1, 2013, will be eligible to win the $5,000 prize!

In addition, every school that posts 20 new or updated lists between April 1 and Oct. 15 will automatically receive (while supplies last) a free School Supply Stash with all sorts of classroom supplies, like glue sticks and paper towels, valued at $125.

More than 130,000 classrooms have created lists on TeacherLists.com since the site launched in April 2012. The TeacherLists.com platform lets teachers create lists online that they can then update whenever they need to. They also can create wish lists for upcoming projects, holidays, and events. Parents can easily access the lists to help them when they shop for classroom supplies at back-to-school time and throughout the school year.

Parents can even pledge to donate an item from a teacher’s wish list online – the teacher is instantly notified via email and her list automatically updates, just like a registry!

Since TeacherLists.com was introduced, parent group leaders have found it is a great way to help out teachers. TeacherLists.com eliminates the need for teachers to create new lists every year, distribute copies, then update parents with additional notes home throughout the year. Often, the notes don’t make it all the way home, or they end up stuck at the bottom of a backpack for weeks! With TeacherLists.com, a teacher can create a list and instantly share it on the school’s website, or via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Teachers also can print copies of lists for parents who prefer to have a hard copy.

At many schools, parent volunteers have helped teachers set up online lists and share them with parents. It’s another way to show teachers that they are truly appreciated. Be sure to encourage your school to publish new lists or update existing ones to get $125 in free supplies, plus a chance to win $5000 for a teachers’ lounge makeover. If you do, your teachers could be basking in a brand-new lounge by year’s end. Just imagine the possibilities! Cappuccino, anyone?

The big winner of the $5,000 prize will be announced the week of Aug. 5. The winning school gets to figure out how it will spend the cash. We can’t wait to see the makeover!

To learn more about the lounge makeover contest and TeacherLists.com, click here.

Yup, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. The good news: It’s not too late to send a great message to your teachers. You don’t need months of planning.

While I’m certainly a fan of elaborate appreciation efforts, I find that simple or frequent and sincere thanks can be just as powerful. For any of you procrastinators out there, we actually have a great article on last-minute teacher appreciation ideas that I think you’ll find very helpful.

As far as longer-term teacher appreciation, I hope you’ll also take full advantage of the new TeacherLists.com web tool. Tons of PTOs and PTAs are getting their schools set up on TeacherLists.com, and teachers are loving it. Give it a look.

All of us here at PTO Today salute teachers. We love passionate parent volunteers and we love talented administrators who lead so well, and – this week – we love especially all of the dedicated teachers who give all of themselves to inspire our children year-in and year-out.

With Teacher Appreciation Week just a few weeks away (May 7-11), we thought it might be helpful to provide a roundup of articles, tips, and ideas, as well as some free files to download from our File Exchange.

Now, we know some of you have your Teacher Appreciation plans well mapped out and ready to go. But we are guessing there may be a few folks out there still looking for ideas or even just starting to put your ideas together.  No worries! Some of the best events and gifts come together beautifully in the last moment, right?

So, just for the sake of argument, say you are one of those last-minute types. You might want to take a look at our teacher appreciation article designed just for you. It has some fun and easy ideas, such has having students make cards for teachers.

This article also mentions the very popular (and quick to put together) gift known as The Candy Poem. You can download a copy of it from our File Exchange here.

Also on the File Exchange, you will find a few dozen more Teacher Appreciation files to download that you can use in putting together gifts. One amusing one is the Priceless Lunch Duty card, which is a “gift card’’ for teachers giving them a pass on lunch duty for a day. Of course, it requires a volunteer parent to take the shift!

Another quick turn-around suggestion gives teachers a similar pass for recess. This is a simple and easy one, but it will certainly be appreciated. Read our Tim’s Tip on this idea.

If you check out our Message Boards, we have an entire forum set up on Teacher Appreciation topics.

One example is an exchange with a parent doing a sports-themed Teacher Appreciation celebration. Another exchange offers ideas for a garden party themed luncheon and includes menu ideas (salads).

Also, our Idea Bag section on our site is loaded with ideas submitted by parents. One terrific suggestion is to send a thank-you to the kids whose parents help out, saying you appreciate them letting the school borrow their mom or dad.

Finally, once you’ve wrapped up your events on the week of May 7, you can scan this article for ideas for next year!

Have a great Teacher Appreciation Week!

Quickie tip this week: You know what teacher job seems easy but is really kind of a pain in the rear end? Recess duty.

It seems like fun to get some fresh air and watch the kids play, but it’s a bit less so the 314th time you do it, especially when duty means you don’t get the break you normally use to recharge your batteries or get ahead on correcting assignments.

That’s why one of my favorite teacher appreciation ideas is to have parents serve recess duty , during Teacher Appreciation Week or even randomly throughout the year. Check with your principal on how it could work. If he wants a staff member at recess all the time, perhaps parents can be the “extra” adult so that only one teacher is needed outside rather than two or three. The same can hold true for lunch duty, another of the most dreaded parts of the teacher day.

For more great teacher appreciation ideas, check out our topic page at ptotoday.com/teacher-appreciation.

Wanted to give a big shout out to the PTO Today Teacher Wish List grant winners!  Here are the 10 lucky winners:

• Ririe Elementary School - Ririe, ID
• Centennial Academy - Littleton, CO
• Lakewood Elementary -Twin Lakes, WI
• Gardnertown Fundamental Magnet - Newburgh, NY
• Nolachuckey Elementary - Greenville, TN
• Meadows Elementary -St Louis, MO
• 66943 Skipwith Elementary - Richmond, VA
• Coronado Elementary - Amarillo, TX
• Berryton Elementary - Berryton KS
• Hollister Elementary School - Hollister, MO

These ten PTO Today grants are added to the 100 grants given by Teacher Wish List and Bounty. That’s a total of 110 schools that have received Teacher Wish List grants! It makes me smile to think of all the school supplies that these grants bought!  And the best is yet to come. Next week Bounty will announce the winner of the $25,000 art room makeover! Stay tuned…

Have you signed up your school for Teacher Wish List yet?  What are you waiting for? Order a free kit to get started or visit the Teacher Wish List site. The teachers at your school will thank you!

With teacher appreciation week coming up, I’ve got one very simple tip: no apples!

No ceramic apples. No macramé apples. No pictures of apples. No real apples. I suppose if you wanted to give a teacher an Apple iPhone, that would be fine. But beyond that — seriously — no apples! My mom taught first grade for 20+ years, and let’s just say we had a lot of apples around the house every December and June.

So what’s the appreciative PTO or PTA to do? In my opinion, you can do no better than sincere service and sincere thank-yous. Notes from the kids. Notes from parents (sometimes even better and more unexpected). Have a surprise crew wash every teacher’s car out in the parking lot (be sure to leave a well-penned note). Bring in a sandwich and salad buffet to the faculty lounge. Hire a massage therapist to give 15-minute chair massages to teachers throughout one day. Get creative. Here are some resources from ptotoday.com to help you get inspired:

• Teacher Appreciation page
• Teacher Appreciation File Exchange
• Teachers & Principal Idea Bag

Creating community around your school and creating a positive, communal environment in your building are great goals of most PTOs. Showing your teachers how much your whole community values their contributions fits those goals perfectly. If your enthusiasm and appreciation shine through (and your apples are left at home), then you’ll do great! Good luck.

“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.”  ~Author Unknown

Teacher appreciation is top of mind for PTOs and PTAs this time of year. Year after year, we are amazed by the energy and creativity that groups put into thanking their teachers.  This is why we are so excited to tell you that we’ve teamed up with Febreze for a teacher appreciation give-away.

To celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, parents have the chance to nominate the teachers who have inspired their children now through May 6th. After National Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2 – May 6), one teacher will be chosen as a winner and receive the “Teacher of the Year” title and a $5,000 cash prize to put toward classroom supplies or a classroom makeover!

Here’s how you can spread the word to your friends and other parents at your school to encourage families to nominate their favorite teacher for the Febreze Teacher of the Year:

• Download the Febreze Teacher of the Year Award flyer to send home to moms at your school.
• Download the Teacher of the Year Award web graphic and post it on your school or PTO website – be sure to link it to www.facebook.com/febreze.
• Cut and paste the following copy into your next newsletter, email, or to your website:

Nominate your child’s favorite teacher for the Febreze Teacher of the Year!

Help your children recognize their favorite teachers by nominating them for the first-ever Febreze Teacher of the Year Award! To celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week, parents have the chance to nominate the teachers who have inspired their children. After National Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2 – May 6), one teacher will be chosen as a winner and receive the “Teacher of the Year” title and a $5,000 cash prize to put toward classroom supplies or even a classroom makeover! Nominate your favorite teacher at www.facebook.com/Febreze now through May 6th!

How cool would it be to see your child’s teacher or a teacher at your school win $5,000? Talk about a morale booster!