Teacher Appreciation Week should be a time that we all celebrate each other. Here are 3 simple ideas to make the most of the week inside your own classroom and spreading appreciation and excitement.
Celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week
Welcome to today’s extra credit episode, where I want to talk about three ways to make teacher appreciation week extra special. As a teacher and I don’t mean about buying people gifts. And I don’t mean about getting so creative with how you personalize something for one of your own kids’ teachers, but in your own classroom, how can we make this just a little bit easier and a little bit more special for you?
Sending Teacher Appreciation Emails
One thing I love to do is start off on Monday of teacher appreciation week with a five minute bell ringer, warmup, whatever you do to kick off your day. I have students open and send an email to one of their previous teachers with two to three sentences about why they are thankful to have had that teacher in their experience or something that they really took away from their class.
It has to be positive and it has to be something that they really feel connected with. Needs to be a past or current teacher, but beyond that, it can be about anything. That’s gonna feel good to get the week kicked off and then you might see other students start to send emails around on their own as well.
And then you just see the whole vibe of the school pickup and everyone’s nice and happy.
Amazon Wishlists for Teacher Appreciation Ideas
The second thing is a little bit trickier. Because it feels a little selfish. I know, as a secondary teacher, so many of us don’t expect to ever really receive gifts. When you get something from a student, whether it is an heartfelt email or a handwritten note, or even just a chocolate bar around Christmas. It feels extra special because we see so many students in a day and they have so many teachers.We know it’s just not realistic to have the same sort of reaction that elementary teachers get when they are having a student all day, every day for the entire school year.
But there are people out there who really do want to appreciate you and recognize you for the things you’re doing. So what I suggest you do is include in your email signature, a link to your Amazon classroom wishlist. And if you don’t have one, it’s so easy to make, just go ahead and make a wishlist and title it; “Your classroom” that way you can share this wishlist with other people and they are able to see it. I add this as a permanent link in my email signature so that anybody who has an email from me. Can look at it and decide if they would like to go on there and purchase some supplies for my room.
Teacher appreciation week can get pricey for students who have 7, 8, 9 teachers a day so I like to include things on there, like small packs of pencils, a single set of markers, erasers, individual glue sticks. Things that are more attainable for people. If they do want to honor you by purchasing something. And also we’re still going to benefit your classroom in smaller amounts.
A whole pack of pre sharpened Ticonderogas , would go a long way for about $2 and 50 cents.
Model your own Teacher Appreciation
Number three comes down to you actually sharing your own gratitude and stories with your students. Again, this is all about setting a positive environment and positive, good vibes out into the world if you will. If we can share some of the inspirational teachers that we’ve had in our lives, then maybe students will start to understand that it doesn’t all have to be about grades and work. It can be as simple as my band teacher in high school created an amazing sense of community so that I am still reliving fond memories that I spent with my band mates in high school here almost 15 years later.
I had a coach in high school who really taught me how to turn around and think about mistakes that I make in the moment and assess them so that I can improve for next time. Or the times that my biology teacher in high school made us laugh so hard that the thing that we were learning about is stuck in my head only because I relate it to the time that our elderly teacher decided to do the splits in front of class to make sure we were all awake. These are such small moments that we can take and share gratitude for that will then pass that attitude along to our students.
Chalking the Walk
And a bonus one is, if you have a little bit of time, consider taking your students outside with some chalk and talking some appreciation for free for the people who are in your building.
These are just three simple ways that you can make teacher appreciation week, feel special, not only for yourself and bringing up all of your energy, but also sharing all of the happiness with the teachers around you. So I hope that you have a wonderful teacher appreciation week. I hope you know, that you are amazing that you are doing great things. And I hope you know that the year is almost over and we’ve got this.
Until next time.
