Teacher Appreciation Week is here! For those of you with children with ADHD, behavioral or learning problems you probably have an in-depth relationship with your teachers. And you are probably more appreciative for all the things they do above and beyond their job description.
I look forward to this week as an opportunity to show teachers how much we appreciate them. They are raising our future! This year I got comments from a few parents that bothered me. A few parents felt we do too much for teachers who are ‘only doing their job’… WHAT? I volunteer in my kids school and I see first-hand what these teachers do. And I don’t just mean for my ADHD/Dyslexia/Dysgraphia kids, but for ALL kids! It is not the teachers job to stay in recess or lunch to help kids finish tests, or re-take tests they missed. It’s not teachers job to stay in lunchtime to supervise reading club, math club, water color painting class, hockey or Earth Rangers group. They give freely their one hour of a lunch break because they know they are helping raise our children to be amazing adults!
For this reason and all the other amazing things teachers do I was so happy to help co-plan our Staff Appreciation Week. No matter if you are a homeroom teacher, a receptionist, daycare of custodial staff, these people take care of our kids. We wanted to take care of them. We decided on a week of Wellness. Also, our Parent Committee was aware that this years appreciation week came only a month after Christmas where many teachers received a lot of chocolates and sweets.
Now before I go further I do have to explain that our school really does goes ABOVE AND BEYOND for Teacher Appreciation Week. For starters we do ‘Staff Appreciation Week’ which includes the principal, vice-principal, office staff, behavioral and specialists, in-class attendants, nurse, daycare monitors, lunch hour supervisors and caretakers. That is around 70 people that we take time for the entire week to appreciate.
Volunteers Make the Week Possible
Big praise has to be sent out to all the parents who came together to help with the week. 
The biggest help was reaching out the parents and local businesses for donations and the parents to be volunteers to pick things up and spend time serving at school that week. In past years we also had ‘craft days’ where parents of the school got together and made gifts for the teachers.
Spread the Word
Before the week even started we informed parents. We sent a note home through the school to inform parents Appreciation Week was happening and also encouraging them to get their kids to do something to appreciate past or present staff. One of the greatest things that week was seeing the notes kids created for teachers!
In the teacher lounges, admin offices and daycare we posted schedules of the week so all the staff would know what was happening.
We also sent the school admin images they could use to promote the week on social media.
So What Did We Do?
It all starts the Friday before. We go in to decorate the front entryways (main door and daycare) so that when teachers arrive they are start the week feeling appreciated. We also put out the teacher gifts so when teachers arrived early on Monday their gifts are there.
Also, did I mention we do the ENTIRE week? Not just one day, but all 5 days and multiple things every day!
For starters, we have coffee and snacks EVERY morning in the teachers lounge (by 8am). It was mostly fruit as snacks, but one morning we had a snack tray provided by a parent and we had GoGoQuina chocolate cookies that the teachers loved and the extra quinoa protein in the cookies was GREAT! I also made quinoa granola bars, which were gone in seconds. Another easy to make treat everyone loves is caramel popcorn. For this you can either serve it in bowls or individual bags.
Teachers also get a gift EVERY day. It doesn’t have to be something big, but just something for them to know we are thinking of them and appreciate them. We had a volunteer put teachers gifts in their cubbies the evening before (at the end of the day). This way no matter when teachers came in the next morning it would be there.
We wanted to make sure the teachers were well feed too, so we had a snack every day that was put out at recess and stay available until after lunch. On Friday there was no snack because they were provided a full lunch.
MONDAY
Gift: Teachers started the week with a water bottle with the tag ‘Motivate, Hydrate, Feel Great’ (tag at bottom)
Mini health talk at lunch: One of our parents is a Life Coach of Harmony Health Coaching who came in at lunch to speak to staff about the importance of self care, the importance of hydration and the hidden sugar in foods.
Snack: For Monday since we were having a professional come talk about the importance of hydration the snack was a infused water station. The water station was so popular that we kept flavored water every day of the week!
TUESDAY
Gift: I am sure some teachers may feel like they are just trying to survive some weeks. So to make it easier we provided them with a survival kit with items like a kitkat to remind them to take a break and paperclips to help them hold it all together.
Mini Massages: A teachers job is stressful! So we tried to help them alleviate stress with 15-minutes massages. Massages were supposed to be a few days, but Tuesday evening out volunteer slipped on ice and hurt her hand and on such short notice we weren’t able to find a replacement. Next year we will try to have min-massages, mini-manicures, mini-pedicures and such things throughout the week.
Snack: For Tuesday, we had healthy green juice full of mango, spinach, coconut water, cucumber, tropical juices and pineapple. And again, we had citrus water and GoGoQuinoa chocolate cookies.
WEDNESDAY
Gift: Bamboo toothbrushes are a sustainable item that does not fill up landfills. Each staff received a bamboo toothrbush with the tag ‘Life is short! Smile while you still have teeth!’. Another school mom who has a local business BubbleShop that makes handmade soaps and bath bombs also gave a coupon for every teacher… but I sadly didn’t get a photo.
Snack: For Wednesday we thought teaches may be missing their chocolates and sweets, or more substantial snacks. We provided them with a build your own Yogurt Bar. There was plain vanilla, berries, nut-free granola (which isn’t always easy to find), berries, bananas.
We also had lemon, lime and mine flavored water too. A good note about the water it to add ice so that the leaves do not brown.
If the yogurt will be sitting out for awhile make sure it’s on ice.
THURSDAY
Gift: Teachers deserve to be appreciated ALL YEAR. We wanted them to have a reminder they would keep all year long, so we gave them a jar of positive quotes. There was enough quotes to have one a week for a year. The tag read: ‘I will face whatever comes this week with a positive attitude’.
Snack: For Thursday was a Make Your Own Trail Mix. Again, because it’s in schools we had to get creative to find something that was nut-free. We tried our best to keep it healthy too, but added some things like caramel popcorn and yogurt covered pretzels.
We served it with David’s fruit explosion cold tea and flavored water.
FRIDAY
Gift: We wanted to end the week with a big gift, so each teacher got an orange stress (was originally going to be clementines, but we found someone who donated stress balls) with the tag: Orange you glad it’s Friday! We also were able to give skincare products from Kiehls that said ‘Let’s Face It, You’re Awesome!’
Lunch: We also wanted to end the week with a big meal that all the teachers were able to come together and enjoy. Since we are in Canada and it’s cold we had soup of course! We also had sandwiches and salads, with options for gluten-free and dairy-free.
We also had some amazing parents come out to help set-up, serve and clean-up from the lunch and the entire week.
For dessert we provided gelato, choclate dipped strawberries, fruit and chickpea protein cookies.
Snack: Since there was a big lunch on Friday we didn’t provide a snack for Friday. There was the usual fruit and snacks in the morning in case they were hungry!
Printables
In case you wanted to do any of these for your teachers and staff, here are the tags
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Let us know what you do special for your Teacher Appreciation Week.
