Teacher Appreciation Ideas for a Theme – YOU are INCREDIBLE!!!
(Pre-note: All the files I created, I printed through Alphagraphics in Bountiful. Grant, the owner, was exceptional to work with and I never print anywhere else. Also, I will include all the PDF’s later today after I work on this year’s Teacher Appreciation, I am in charge of, that comes in just under 2 weeks. A different theme with loads of fun that I will post about next year. Lots of files to finish making and details to go over. Each picture you see on here will have a PDF file to go along with it. Each file is press quality. None of that grainy stuff. I am a print snob.)
Eagle Bay Elementary Teachers and Staff are INCREDIBLE!!!! They really are. Back in 2009, because of circumstances beyond the person’s control, and with less than 2 weeks to the event, Teacher/Staff Appreciation had no one in charge of it. I decided that being PTA Treasurer was a cushy job (LOL!!!) and that I could head up this event with no problem. I wanted to create a theme that was fun, easy to work with, and had endless possibilities. Somewhere on the internet, (I don’t remember as it was 3 years ago) I found someone’s post on a blog that showed they had used The Incredibles when they decorated their Teacher’s Door. As soon as I saw that, the ideas started flying and what you see is the result of my imagination and love for the Teachers and Staff.
This is a sample of what the door kits I made looked like. I made sure to make the kits ahead of time, so that it was a simple task of just hanging them up. It is easier to get people to volunteer to hang up door kits than it is to get them to volunteer to come up with an idea all by themselves and then put it up.
Isn’t it cool that we can find just about any font we want on the internet now? The have an Incredibles font which I used to make these signs. There are some that I made specific to individuals, all the rest had this.
This is the Pow that was used to put behind the teachers to get the more super hero affect. It was cute.
I created a special poem to the teachers and used it for their doors. These are my true feelings of how much I love teachers. Growing up in a divorced family, I stayed after school a lot and was the teacher’s helper. In Elementary, I would stay after school and go around to the different teachers to see if they needed my help. I grew to love them and their kindness towards me influenced my decision that I wanted to be a teacher someday. This poem is from my viewpoint of what I saw growing up from Elementary through High School. My favorite High School teacher, Mrs. Thompson, became a really great mentor to me and even gave me her clothes she didn’t want anymore, which I LOVED!!! You have to understand that all the girls in high school, even the popular ones, which I was NOT a part of, envied her. The reason? She NEVER wore the same outfit to school twice. EVER!!! They even kept track of it one year, which I thought was hilarious. That is how many cute and stylish clothes she had. Then you had me, whose mother didn’t have a lot of money and we did our shopping at the D.I., which didn’t bother me at all but I got teased incessantly about it from those popular girls. I think I had even purchased one of their outfits one time and they knew it. (I realize this is becoming a extrememly long side note, but it’s important to my feelings on teachers. ) So, back to the story, my Senior year, Mrs. Thompson approached me and asked if I would like to have her clothes she wasn’t using anymore. Imagine, if you possibly can, my thrill and excitement that I would get her clothes and that I would get to wear them at school, AND that those same girls who teased me, who wanted her clothes, would KNOW they were Mrs. Thompsons!!!! The irony was beyond my wildest imagination. She was an AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, kind hearted, and caring teacher, whom I love and I am still in contact with today. Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for your kindness towards one girl, and for making my life a little bit better my Senior year because of your thoughtful act of charity towards me.
I made this sign for the bottom of the door as a signature that this was from the students in their class.
For each Teacher/Staff person I made them into either a Mrs. Incredible or a Mr. Incredible. All the women loved that they looked skinny and tall . . .
. . . and all the guys loved that they looked buff and super strong.
We had a number of teachers who were pregnant or who had just had a baby, so on their doors I included a little Jack Jack. All the rest of the doors had just the teacher or teachers who were in that classroom.
For the Principal, Vice Principal, Secretaries, Custodians, Lunch Ladies, and all Specialist, I made their signs more individualized.
I thought it would be cute and appropriate to have our Principal, Mrs. Wade be the lady who seemed to be in charge of all the Super Heros, well, at least their clothing for sure. Mrs. Wade LOVED it!
I always like to include the Officer who works with our school when I do these things. Officer Winkleman thought this was the neatest thing he had ever seen and couldn’t recall a time he was ever included in the Teacher/Staff Appreciation week. Don’t forget your Officer who works so closely with the kids!!
Attached to the thank you gift of movie tickets to the Kaysville Theatre, we had the little thank you note as seen below.
On the Wednesday, while the teachers were off having some free time to themselves, I had a helper in each room come in and help the students fill out a paper telling the Teachers and Staff why the students thought they were Incredible. We put them together and gave them to the teachers and staff the next day. A copy of it will be pictured below.
Our Teacher is Incredible Student Notes PDF
PLEASE REMEMBER that I worked hard on these and to direct people back to my blog. Please do not re-post onto your own. Thank you for respecting the creativity and copyright.
YW Binders idea
Going along with our theme this year, I created binder covers for each of the leaders. They turned out fun and cute and I am sharing the idea with you. If you would like one, please leave a comment and I will put the PDF’s on mediafire where you can download them.
Enjoy!!!!
YW Binder Covers and Spine Inserts
Wedding Advice Printable
I had a friend approach me in my ward asking if I could help her create something for an upcoming wedding she has a part in. Of course, I LOVE to create anything so I said yes. Thought I would share the idea with you since it was sooooooooo cute. Her friend/relative is having an old vintage library themed wedding and she wanted to have vintage library checkout cards available for people to write their advice on. Here is what I came up with. ENJOY!!!!
YW – Theme introduction “Arise and Shine Forth and Create your own Happily Ever After”
We really felt impressed, as a Presidency, to include President Uchtdorf’s talk on Happily Ever After in with our Arise and Shine Forth theme for the year. It’s really a great theme that can be molded to your own group of girls. We all need to Arise and Shine Forth on different areas in our life. Here is a small handout that we did and gave out to each girl the second Sunday in January. They all really enjoyed and and became excited about the year. You are welcome to take it and use it, but please send a link back to our blog if you repost it.
Young Women – Ways to celebrate birthdays
I have only been in Young Women’s now for 1 week and I love it already!!!! There is so much girl stuff I get to do and create and have fun with. WOW!!!! Plus girls camp!!!!! I am in heaven.
Our Presidency wanted to do something a little bit different for birthdays so we decided on a yard sign. So far, the reception by the girls has been fun. We even included the leaders in it to. When it’s their birthday, their leader puts up this sign in their yard, very early in the morning. We use a black permanent marker to write their name below the Happy Birthday wish. (This sign has been laminated so that we can erase the marker using rubbing alcohol.) It’s so fun to recognize, with such a simple small thing, each girl as their birthdays come around.
We made sure each group had their own sign. The counselor and advisor designated between themselves who would be responsible for putting it up each time. I even snuck in a leaders birthday, yesterday, and she loved it. I just called one of the other Presidency to go put it in her yard.
Remember, the point is to have fun and recognize each girl individual ON their birthday, in a simple and fun way.
(I used Katie Castillo’s Just So Scrappy – Happy Days Digital Scrapbook Elements along with background papers that I can’t quite place yet. The pictures I got somewhere off the web.)
ENJOY!!!
(I printed these as a 12×18 size, but the file is an 11×17 PDF.)
Christmas Bingo Pre-School Version!!!
. . . BiNgO . . .
Is One Of Our FaVoRiTe Holiday Traditions!
Our family has enjoyed these creations for a couple of years now.
Below are links to our posts from the past on this game,
and then below that is a new version that Tricia
and I created together for your cute
little pre-schoolers and those a little bit older than
pre-school age.
Family Home Evening and Family Parties.
The Jingo Bingo is perfect for School Parties.
Don’t forget to yell, JINGO instead of Bingo
when you win or it doesn’t count!
You will also be seeing a preschool version
of each!
Follow the…STAR
HO…HO…HO!
(This one is more like Tic Tac Toe, but the little one’s won’t know!)
It’s perfect for short attention spans!
You have to say, “HO…HO…HO”…when you
get 3 in a row!
You have to yell the title of each game for it to count!
Christmas Jars!!!!
Like this:
The Nativity Play!!!
Christmas Eve
is my FAVORITE part of Christmas!
I get so ExCiTeD I can hardly stand it.
I love Traditions and Christmas Eve seems to
have some of the best ones.
Our Christmas Eve Traditions consist of:
Games and Prizes
Amazing Food
A Visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus
The Christmas Eve P.J. Parade
and then the
BEST PART OF ALL….
The Nativity Play
followed by our
Secret Santa Delivery
and an
All Night Hallmark Movie Marathon
Slumber Party with the boys!
I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!
I created a new Nativity Set for this one,
and I have to say, IT’S MY FAVORITE!
So here it is, page by page:
We have the kids in the family dress up
and read their parts.
For FHE I made a second set.
This one is one that can be held with little hands
and moved around.
Here they are…
Here’s the PDF:
The pieces can be Mod Podged to wood or chipboard.
This would be a fun gift for Visiting Teaching
and Home Teaching.
You could cut and laminate the pieces.
Attach a magnent on the back and use it with a magnetic board,
you could print on magnetic paper. You could
attach them to tongue depressors, or
you could just give them a copy of the story.
Lots of possibilities!
Nativity Story Cards
The Silent Night Memory Game
is a great way to talk to your “littles” about
the TRUE MEANING of Christmas.
I was able to use mine for a Primary Sharing Time.
When they got the match…
I had the child read the Story Card
that goes with that picture.
Here’s what they look like:
Each of the Memory Game Cards
will have a front and a back.
The back side of all of the cards will have
this picture:
The other side will have two of each of the other pictures
shown below.
This is what the Story Cards look like:
I keep these and when a match is made,
I hand it to the one who got the match to read.
Instructions:
Cards can be printed with a front and back side
and laminated,
or they can be printed and attached to
chipboard using Mod Podge and
a sponge brush to attach them.
You can use a wet erase marker to write
numbers on the stars of the back pieces
when the game is played in Primary.
When you’re done…just wipe them off
and start with a fresh set of numbers
every time you play.
Here’s the Memory Game Post:
Nativity Memory Game Blog Post
Nativity Story Cards PDF:
Nativity Story Cards Packet PDF
Like this:
Planning my Meals – The Digital Way
Can I just say that I LOVE how digital some things are getting. Let’s take planning your menus. My friend just recently introduced me to this website about a year ago. I didn’t take her seriously until 2 months ago when I tried it free for 30 days. I was HOOKED!!! Plan to Eat is a terrific company that makes it so easy to plan and shop for my meals. I can even plan up to many months at a time if I am feeling really ambitious and organized!!! I love how I can add my own recipes and then drag them to my calendar and it in turn creates a shopping list for me. I can add to and edit that shopping list based on what is in my pantry. I can access that list from my phone when I am at the store. HEAVEN! (Sighing here.)
Shopping and meal plan have never been easier, and I still can use my Menu Item Cards as well. I can also add recipes I find on the internet with the click of a button. SWEET!!!!!! I can also just copy and paste, or I can add them line by line. They even have a blog where they share their own recipes with everyone as well. Click to add it to your own recipe book.
Guess what else you can do???? Add people to your friends and click and save THEIR recipes to your own recipe book!!!! Yes, so serious here. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES???? I am in such a happy land right. My best purchase of Black Friday for sure and I didn’t even have to leave the comfort of my own home! (Have I used enough exclamation points yet?)
I am sooooooo excited for this that I just HAD to share with you. PLUSSSSSSS, the bonus part???? They are having a BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND SPECIAL. I had been waiting to officially subscribe until I could justify the cost and BAM they go and create this fabulous deal that I couldn’t resist. Seriously, you have to at LEAST take a peak at the easiness of this program, and they aren’t even paying me to advertise for them! (Wait……….how DO people get paid to do that anyway?) There is a link at the bottom of this post if you are interested in seeing what they have to offer for you. ENJOY!!!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!
