Teacher Appreciation "Berry" Gift (with free printable)

It's been a busy month, as you might have seen from our June Monthly Goals post, on both the work and personal front. This has meant it's been one of our quietest months yet at Kitchen Floor Crafts. However, while we may have been distracted we've still had a few moments for crafting fun and family focused time.

This included putting together an end of year gift for Little Brother's preschool teachers. His year ended a little later than Big Brother's, which meant that the local strawberries were already in season. Who doesn't love fresh strawberries?

We paired fresh strawberries with a handmade card to create this sweet and memorable teacher appreciation gift. 

Chocolate Dipped Fortune Cookies

This fun treat is something we've made a few times before - and even though it doesn't take a lot to make them, they look fantastic and special when they are done.

The other great thing about these treats is that even little hands can help with some of the steps so kids can feel involved. We recently made a batch for Teacher Appreciation Week and the boys loved helping make these sweet treats for their teachers. 

Potato Stamped Tea Towels

We were really excited to be able to participate in the Kid Made Gift Series that is being hosted by Teach Me Mommy. We really like making homemade gifts, especially around the holidays. These potato stamped tea towels were something I'd been thinking of trying for a while now, and we just love how they turned out! 

Potato stamping is always fun and versatile, as you can create just about any kind of stamp you want. In our case, we want these to be holiday gifts to we made Christmas themed ones. 

Teacher Appreciation Gift: Seed & Flower Craft

We had a lot of fun this week thinking of ways to treat the boys' teachers. Although I always appreciate the things I receive as a teacher during this week, I also know how much I value the teachers who take care of my boys when I need to be working. It takes a lot of energy, care, and dedication to be a teacher of young children and we definitely know some of the best.

Throughout the week we thought of small ways to say thank you, so that we could provide treats for more than one day. These Teacher Appreciation Seed & Flower craft gifts were easy to put together and such a great kick off for spring. Our inspiration for the gift came from our Teacher Appreciation Sunflowers a few years ago. 

Teacher Thank You Tree Bookmarks (Free Printable)

This week marks Big Brother's last week of preschool before summer vacation. (He'll be headed back to the same program in the fall.) We wanted to find a way to say thank you to the teachers he has had this year. Preschool has been one of his favorite places ever, and it is his teachers who really make the place special for all of the kids. When we were brainstorming things we can make for people he started talking a lot about bookmarks, and it inspired me to help him create bookmarks for the teachers.

I had spotted many cute ideas on Pinterest for either plant or tree themed gifts, including several cute fingerprint tree ideas.

Sugar & Spice Teacher Gifts

Teacher appreciation week officially was last week, but I wanted to share what we put together for Big Brother's preschool teachers.

  

They were easy and cute to create.

Squeeze Paint Pots

We made a couple of these last summer and had a lot of fun with them but never posted about it. This week we wanted to create a housewarming present for some good friends, and decided this would be a fun hands on craft for Big Brother to create for them.

What's neat about them is you never know exactly how they are going to turn out. 

Peppermint Marshmallow Stir Sticks

I've had so much fun making these a couple of times over the past holiday week I just had to share how easy they are to make. 

Sweet Holiday Smells Gift Jar

After years of receiving teacher gifts I love trying to think of things to give the boys' teachers which I know will be different, useful, and appreciated. I also like to have Big Brother involved in making them if possible.

I saw this cute idea for a neighbor gift, and knew it would a great idea for teachers too. The recipe calls for creating a mix of spices, herbs, and dried fruits which when placed in simmering water will create a lovely scent. We decided to make our mixes in wide mouthed half-pint jars.

In each jar we put the following: 

6-8 short cinnamon sticks (I had to score and break our longer sticks to fit)

3-4 dried bay leaves

3 tablespoons whole cloves

1 heaping tablespoon ground allspice

1 heaping tablespoon nutmeg

1 dried lemon slice

1 dried orange slice

1 dried apple slice

I loved how hands-on this could be for Big Brother, especially as he was making them primarily for his preschool teachers. We dried the fruit in our dehydrator, but you can dry it in your oven or find it at craft stores. 

When it came time to assemble the jars, I set up all the ingredients on the floor, where as always, we can get a little messy and it's okay. 

Big Brother did the counting of objects and measuring all on his own. 

We quickly learned it worked better to put the ground ingredients in first, and layer the other ingredients in on top of them. 

After we filled the jars Big Brother selected fabric from our holiday fabric collection to make the jars more festive. He was very particular about which teacher would receive which fabric. We placed the fabric between the lid and the rim, and tightened the rim gently. 

Before giving them, I printed out and tied on a label which read,

"Sweet Holiday Smells For You

Add to a small saucepan with water, simmer gently, and enjoy." 

We wound up making some more for my co-workers and a few neighbors as well. We're hoping they spread our teachers' and friends' homes with the smells which remind people of the warmth and goodness of the holidays. Or, as Big Brother excitedly told one teacher, "It's in case your house stinks." 

** A special note about spices: If you can buy the spices in bulk this project becomes much more affordable to make and assemble. 

This post may also have been shared at some of these terrific link parties. 

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.