Teacher Appreciation Door Decorating

Yesterday I talked about the gifts my daughter gave her teachers. Today I want to talk about door decorating. I've seen the idea of decorating classroom doors for teacher appreciation day online, but never in person--still, I was excited to bring this idea to my daughter's school this year. She attends a preschool-grade 8 school, so it was a bit of a challenge to make it work for all the grade levels, but I think we did it. The teachers LOVED it and were totally surprised by the doors.

The door pictured above is the door I decorated for my daughter's classroom. She is in a first/second grade classroom. I sent home flower petals with each child with a sentence starter on each petal for the student to complete. (My teacher is fun because... I like it when my teacher... ) Then the stem of the flower is made up of pictures of the children. The watering can says XXX showers her students with... and the droplets say patience, kindness, love, respect, and wisdom! Then I added a few cute little bugs to the picture (caterpillar, ladybug, dragonfly, butterfly, and a bee) and labeled them with the names of the specialists, the principal, the priest, and the office manager. It was a big hit and I had a lot of fun making it!
This is the preschool door--with the teachers names covered for privacy. The "A+" is on there because we also were celebrating Catholic Schools Week and the theme was "A+ for Catholic Schools". I forgot to take a picture of the kindergarten door, but it was covered with shiny stars and pictures of the children. Really bright and colorful!
This was the 3/4th grade door (with a lot of sunlight shining in on it from the stairwell!). I had to erase the initials of the school and the name of the teacher. What I really love about this door is that the room mother had the students AND the parents get involved. Each of those handprints has writing on it with things the individual (some students and some parents) appreciates about the teacher. I love this idea!
Whoops! This mom forgot to measure the door, so we had to do some cutting and rearranging when we went to hang the door decoration after school. Luckily it all worked out! She had each child do anagrams at home of a word they would use to describe the teacher and she included those words in the definition that is printed at the top of the yellow part of the paper. Perfect for a 5th/6th grade classroom.

I didn't take a picture of the 7th/8th grade door, but it was a simple poster and the room mother gave me a gift bag with some cards for the teacher to be put on the door knob. It is hard to get those almost-high schoolers to want to be crafty!

Here are some other resources for teacher appreciation door decorating that you may find useful:

• Skip to My Lou
• Mommy Blessings
• Sweet Craft Cakes

I'm linking up to Jen's Weekend WrapUp Party at Tatertots and Jello, Show Us Your Best at No Time For Flashcards, and Show and Share Day at Just a Girl! By the way, I'm still trying (desperately!) to win one of those handy-dandy Silhouette machines! The Domestic Diva has one she is giving away!