Back To School Teacher Gift

We thought it would be a nice gesture to start the school year off with a gift for the teacher. Unfortunately, I started thinking about what it would be a little too late, so I didn’t do what I really wanted to. We did buy a bottle of hand sanitizer and decided to add the teacher’s initial and Little Monkey picked out a flower to add to it. A little bit of cutting on the Cricut and the gift was done. Nice and quick and we know it will get used! The teacher was grateful for the gift and surprised at the personal touch.

Personalized bottle of hand sanitizer

Little Monkey–The First Grade Edition

This week, Little Monkey headed back to school for his first day of first grade. He was very excited to go to his new class. We discovered that he doesn’t have any friends from his last class in his class this year but he says he will make new friends.

Standard pictures for back to school. Little Monkette had to check up on her big brother!

After getting Little Monkey to his class, Little Monkette didn’t want to leave him! She’s been begging all summer for him to go back to school but then wouldn’t leave him there. She wanted to color a picture like all the other kids were doing. Once I got her back home, she was okay with him being at school until we were at the gym. He was only gone three hours and she was ready to have him back home again! She does love her brother!

When we were back at the house, I thought it would be fun to do a line up of the first day of school for the past three years. It is amazing to see how much he has grown!

3 years of First Days of School

I am excited to line up 13 years of first days for him! So far he likes first grade but says they eat lunch really late. He is glad that they get to have a snack in class.

Teacher Appreciation Week-Day 5

For Friday, it was suggested that you send in anything special for the teacher that you wanted to. Little Monkey’s class was going on a field trip so I thought a nice refreshing treat after the field trip would be great. Thanks to sending in our teacher questionnaire at the beginning of school, we knew that Little Monkey’s teacher’s favorite drink was a Slurpee! Not an answer I was expecting to see on the paper, but a fun one for sure! We picked up a $5 gift card to 7-11 and attached it to the straw of an empty Slurpee cup. Little Monkey also picked out some flowers for his teacher to put in her pencil vase from the first day of school. (She has kept it at school all year and we have sent in flowers three times now to fill it.)

Once again I forgot to get a picture of Little Monkey with his presents. He had to be at school an hour early to go on the field trip, so we were a little pressed for time! The week after Teacher Appreciation Week, Little Monkey received a very nice handwritten letter from his teacher thanking him for all of his very thoughtful gifts during the week.

Teacher Appreciation Week-Day 4

For Day 4, it was suggested that we send in a candy bar for the teacher. Little Monkey’s teacher’s favorite candy bar is just plain chocolate. We picked up a Hershey bar for her at the store and found the printable below to wrap around it (Nothing But Country). Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of Little Monkey with the candy bar.

Candy Bar Wrapper

Teacher Appreciation Week-Day 3

For Day 3 of Teacher Appreciation week, it was suggested that we bring in some sort of baked good, either homemade or store bought. Since we had been going to the gym a lot, doing the 24 day challenge, we were trying to keep baked goods out of the house. We picked up some small chocolate chip cookies (Little Monkey’s teacher’s favorite cookies) from Target’s bakery and put them into a ziploc bag. I found some clip art of a chocolate chip cookie and added the sentence, “Thanks for making me into a smart cookie.” We printed the label on card stock and stapled it to the top of the ziploc bag.

Little Monkey’s Cookie present

Teacher Appreciation Week-Day 2

Tuesday’s Teacher Appreciation idea was to send in flowers, either real or fake. Little Monkey and I decided to make his teacher some flower pens. I was able to get the supplies I needed at the Dollar Tree. We picked out some pretty lilies, Little Monkey’s teacher’s favorite flower. A little bit of floral tape and wrapping around the pens and they were ready for a pot of soil, or in our case, pinto beans.

Flower pens in flower pot

We added a little circle printable to the front of the flower pot. I found the printable (FREE!) at Skip To My Lou. She has it so that you can change the name to your student and then print it out! It says, ‘Thank you for helping XXXX grow.’

Teacher Appreciation Week-Day 1

It is that time again!! Teacher Appreciation Week! Sorry I didn’t get these up sooner to help you with ideas for your teacher but there are tons of ideas out there! Our PTA sent home an idea sheet for something to send in each day:
Monday-A hand written note/card by the parent or student
Tuesday-Flowers, real or fake
Wednesday-A baked good, store bought or homemade
Thursday- Teacher’s favorite candy
Friday-Anything special you want to send in
I decided to work with the ideas and try to send something that corresponded each day.

Day 1 Little Monkey made a hand written note for his teacher. He also designed and colored the picture on the front.

Front of the card-Little Monkey and his teacher

Inside of card

(Edited to add: I went in to Little Monkey’s classroom near the end of the school year to help with craft day and found this card still taped on his teacher’s door!)

Check back later this week for more of our Teacher Appreciation gifts!

Need some ideas before then? Check out the posts of what we did last year for Little Monkey’s PreK teachers!

Day 1- S’mores
Day 2- Popcorn, Water, Notepad and Pencils
Day 3- Crayon Picture Frame with Quote
Day 4- Fabric Bookmarks
Day 5- Magnetic Memo Boards

Green Eggs & Ham

Yesterday was Dr. Suess’ birthday. To celebrate at school, Little Monkey’s class has been doing lots of Dr. Suess themed things all week. On Friday, the kids got to wear their pajamas to school. Little Monkey was very excited to wear his pajamas to school. I also found out that they were going to serve green eggs and ham to the kids in his class. As is usually the case, this snack was not something that Little Monkey could have. I had to come up with something for his special snack that was ‘green eggs and ham’ too. After a quick Pinterest search, I found a cute pretzel candy idea.

I tried to make a similar idea and tried using a homemade icing. The problem I had was that I couldn’t get the icing stiff enough to stay point. I gave up and grabbed a can of frosting and waited for Little Monkey to get home from school. He was excited to help me with the project. We decided that we would make enough of the snacks so that Little Monkey could share with his class and teachers.

Little Monkey laid out sets of pretzels and waited for me to add the pile of frosting. Once the frosting was added, Little Monkey added the mini m&m on top. We put all the sets back into the fridge to help them firm up. Little Monkey loved making them, eating them and sharing them with his friends!

Making Green Eggs & Ham

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess!

Pasta For Pennies!

Earlier in the week, Little Monkey was home after school when he suddenly got excited and ran off to his room. He came back carrying his piggy bank. I asked him what he was doing and he said the announcements told them the next day was the last day to bring in their coins for Pasta for Pennies. I had forgotten about it but he was very excited to pull some coins from his piggy bank to take in. We talked about what the money was for. He decided he would give them ALL his small coins. To him, that meant all his pennies and dimes. I have no idea how much money he took in but he was very excited to pick out all of the pennies and dimes to take to school. He is a sweet boy.

After he picked out all the pennies and dimes, we counted all the nickels and quarters. Much to my surprise, Little Monkey had over $50 in his piggy bank! I asked him what he was saving his money for. He doesn’t seem to know. Just that one day he will buy something at the store with it!

He’s Such A Sweet Boy!

(I have been slacking on the blogging front…if I ever get caught up, you’ll see why. In the meantime, I’m going to try and post some stuff I had saved and working on in my drafts!)

Back in January, (told you I was behind!) Little Monkey’s teacher had a birthday. We knew this because at the beginning of the year we sent in a worksheet to have her fill out some of her favorites (coffee, color, scent, flower, snack, etc) and her birth date. Thankfully we remembered it and made her some chocolate chip cookies (her favorite snack). We also went to the store and Little Monkey picked out some flowers for her (including some lilies, her favorite flower). We packaged up the cookies in four little containers, making a little cookie tower. Little Monkey had wrote and colored a birthday card for her too.

Little Monkey with flowers, homemade chocolate chip cookies and homemade card for his teacher.

He was VERY excited to take her the gifts he had for her. She also put the flowers right into her vase (I had checked with Little Monkey to see if it was still at school to be sure.) and on her desk. Turned out that Little Monkey was the only kid to bring her a birthday gift. He was so excited about his gifts and happy to make his teacher smile. She wrote him a very nice thank you card too. I love that he loves giving to others!