Teacher Appreciation Themes for Your School

Teacher appreciation week is typically celebrated in the first full week of May, but any time is a good time to tell and show teachers how much we care. Whether you’re a parent looking for teacher appreciation ideas or an administrator wanting a fun way to reward your team, here are some great themes and ideas for teacher appreciation week.

At my daughter’s school we typically turn the conference room into a lounge and full stock it with snacks, as well as bringing in lunch at least during the week. These snack-themed printables from Tidy Lady Printables are great for a themed snack day, whether you’re serving popcorn, cookies, snowcones or s’mores.

The Aloha Hut has a cute idea for a candy bar for teacher appreciation, complete with printables you can use to make your own.

If your school decorates doors, check out this collection of door ideas for teacher appreciation from Events to Celebrate. It might give you an idea for a theme you could use for a gift or whole school theme as well. For example there are several garden themed ones, which could turn into giving teachers plants for their classrooms or other garden-themed goodies.

Play Party Plan has a good roundup of teacher appreciation ideas, including cookies, coffee, doughnuts, pie, Italian sodas and more. Such fun and easy ways to provide teachers with treats throughout the day.

PTO Today has a list of a ton of different teacher appreciation ideas that have been done in the real world (and not necessarily by party professionals, so they’re doable for the rest of us). Lots of snack carts, travel themes, sweet gifts and time out activities to make teachers feel a tiny bit of the appreciation and love we feel for them all year long.

Do you have great ideas for teacher appreciation themes? Or a gift you’ve given a teacher that they loved? We’d love to hear about it!

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Encouraging Self Care for Kids

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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