Teacher Appreciation Sunflowers

These days Pinterest is filled with teacher appreciation gift ideas as both kids and adults are wrapping up the school year. As a teacher, I've always liked when I can see that kids have either had a part in picking or creating a gift. I try to do that for my son's teachers. We choose to celebrate his teachers on National Provider Appreciation Day, which usually is the Friday before Mother's Day.

This year because we were already painting pots for Mother's Day (see  Mother's Day Flower Pots) I decided to have him also create a flower pot for his children's center. We started in a similar way to the Mother's Day pots.

This time he picked several colors to paint the top rim. 

I wanted to play on the name of his center, Little Feet, so we painted just his feet to look like they were in the garden and added flowers on the bottom. 

But instead of fresh flowers, there needed to be something in the pot for each individual teacher. I was inspired by tubes of chocolate covered sunflower seeds in the check out aisle of the craft store and knew we could turn those into a cute sunflower themed gift. 

Materials included: chocolate coated sunflower seeds, yellow card stock, white glue, green pipe cleaners, green ribbon, plain sunflower seeds, and yellow cupcake liners. I used my scrapbook cutting system to create circles out of the darker yellow scrapbook paper, 

but I often just trace an upside down glass or mug for circles. 

First Big Brother cut slits in the cupcake liners. 

He needed help with this as he's still learning the correct way to hold and use scissors. I had him sit in my lap so I could guide him with my hands and we pretended they were "alligators" opening and closing their mouths. This seemed to help him think about how the tools worked. 

 After cutting the slits in the liners, Big Brother glued the liners onto the card stock circles so that the yellow side was up. He then added on the sunflower seeds with more glue.

I created quick gift tags using the lighter yellow card stock and a very fine point sharpie marker. I had Big Brother tell me something he liked about each teacher and something he wanted to thank them for. We wrote this on the back of the cards. 

After the glue had dried we taped a pipe cleaner to the back of the sunflower head and wrapped it around the tube. (We added a small "bubble" of tape to the back of the flower to keep the sunflower on the tube.) We tied the card on with the ribbon. 

All of the "flowers" went into the pot with some floral rocks in the bottom to help the tubes stay upright. 

Big Brother ready to deliver the plant pot and flowers. 

Big Brother took a lot of pride in this project and couldn't wait to share it with his teachers. He has been at his center since he was 6 months old. Although he currently is only there two days a week, he loves the center and teachers and has always felt supported by them. It takes a lot of trust to leave your little ones somewhere and we greatly appreciate the care his teachers have always given him.