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!

Leif Erikson Day is celebrated on Oct. 9, and it’s a great time to learn more about the Vikings and why we still remember Erikson all these years later.

If you don’t know about Leif Erikson (sometimes spelled Eriksson), he’s believed to have been born in Iceland, and is considered the first European to set foot on continental America, more than 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has a printable mini book about Leif Erikson and the Vikings for kids to read and color. It talks about who the Vikings were, what kind of ships they used, how they got to America and more. It’s a good overview for younger kids to use.

A good unit study is available from Simple Living Creative Learning, which includes a page where kids can write what they know, what they want to learn and what they learned through the unit, as well as information on the Vikings, longships, helmets, clothing and more.

Get a printable Viking unit study with reading passages, comprehension questions and other activities aimed at grades 4-8 from Creative Classroom Core at Teachers Pay Teachers. (And see more Vikings content from TPT here.)

Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus has some great unit study ideas, too, including suggested books and videos. The post includes information about the Viking voyages, society, mythology and ships, as well as some vocabulary and a list of famous Vikings. While you’re over there also check out her free printable lapbook, which includes mini books on ships, a timeline, a Viking women coloring page, draw your own Vikings, geography, ancient runes and more.

Piqolo Kids has a lesson on Viking women with (available for purchase) worksheets about a day in the life of Viking women. Even if you don’t grab the printables there’s some good resources on that page and a link to a video on Viking women.

Learn how to draw a Viking ship with instructions from Drawing How to Draw, or grab Vikings coloring and labeling worksheets from Kids Puzzles and Games.

There’s a Leif Erikson Festival annually in Norway, Michigan, which you can learn more about here.

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