Teacher Appreciate Gifts

Happy Thursday! I'm sure many of you know that Teacher Appreciation Day was on Tuesday. Our boys have only been at their new school for five weeks, but we've been very impressed by the teachers they have. They are doing a wonderful job helping the boys get used to their new classrooms, and they have been amazing at communicating with us and helping us as we figure out how to be parents of elementary-aged kids. (Now, I realize that this won't help anyone get an idea of what to do for their teachers, since the day already passed, sorry!)

There are so many ideas for teacher gifts, so I spent a while browsing Pinterest for some ideas. I also asked several of my friends who are teachers what they've appreciated from students over the years. We decided to go with a smaller gift for Teacher Appreciated Day, because we'll also get them a gift at the end of the school year.

Based on all the input and Pinterest inspiration, here's what I came up with:

 Each teacher received a reusable cup filled with chocolate, tea, biscotti, and a Starbucks gift card. I added a tag to the straw with each of their names, and then cut out a hand print from the boys and had them write Thank You to their teachers. I tied a ribbon around each cup and clipped the hand print note to the ribbon with a mini clothes pin. I didn't include a clever or cutesy themed note because 1. I'm not that creative, and 2. I don't really like cutesy sayings that much.

I hope the boys' teachers feel appreciated! Thanks to all the teachers out their for all you do! Don't forget to let your kids teachers know you appreciate them.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Family Tree Poster - with Hands!

Hey All! Happy Friday! We've had a busy week here, getting used to being parents to our two crazy little boys. If you want to read some more about our foster care journey, you can check out our other blog, let's [foster] love.

Anyway, I wanted to make something visual to help the boys learn about their family (most of whom live in another state). So, we made a family tree with our hand prints!

For this project we used:
Poster Board
Colored Copy Paper (or construction paper)
Scissors
Markers and Crayons

I traced all of our hand prints (even a few of Handy Andy's Dad's), cut them out, and wrote all of our family's names on them. Then I drew two trees, so the boys could learn both of our families. The trees come together where Handy Andy and I are (I'm also adding hands for the boys, but I can't share their names on here, so I left them off for the picture). Over the weekend we will start to add pictures of everyone so they can learn their names and faces.

Hopefully, this will help the boys get to know our families, even if they can't meet them all right away! They are really excited about all their cousins. :)

Thanks for stopping by! 

Come back tomorrow for the Pinteresting Link Party!