It’s that time of year where we show our teachers how much we appreciate them! Teacher Appreciation Week tends to be the first week of May. I had the show, Friends on the brain during our last PTO meeting when we were debating themes for this year. I threw out the Friends idea and thought we could call the week, “The One Where You Were Appreciated!” Any Friends fan knows that the title of every episode begins with, “The one with…” So I figured this would be an easy theme to play with.
Hot Tip: If you want to use the graphic I made and save yourself some money paying for the “Friends” font and iconic gold picture frame on Canva like I did, you can purchase it from my shop here. I will send it to you as a JPG and a PDF so that you can send it out to your own school! (I charge half of what Canva does to buy all the components to make it yourself, so you’re getting a sweet deal.)
If you prefer, I can also send you just the blank graphic without the days of the week listed so you can make your own daily themes up! Please note: The graphic doesn’t send automatically upon purchase. Once I see the email that you’ve purchased it, I will email all of the graphics your way. So don’t panic if it takes a bit. I try to check my email continually through the day, but it may take a couple hours for me to respond. It will come to you from my blog email: gracebeautyandfbombs@gmail.com.
Anyhow, let’s continue on to the good shit. As VP of our school’s PTO, we had already planned gifts that the PTO would be giving our staff out of the PTO’s budget. From there, I thought up episodes/lines from the show that would tie in with the gifts we had planned. We knew that for one day we were going to stock the teacher’s lounge with snacks. For another day, we were going to have personalized cookies for each staff member. And for another day we were going to gift them each an AMC theater gift card alongside gourmet popcorn from Popcorn Bliss.
The main thing to keep in mind when planning Teacher Appreciation Week, is that each day needs to focus on a gift or item students can easily bring in. I wanted to be budget-conscious knowing that parents tend not to have unlimited amounts of money for expensive gifts. So for the other days I figured we could have students do items that are FREE! For instance, write a letter or draw a picture. After I figured out what each day would be, I used Canva to make the graphic above! For all the things I list below, I include gifts I gave teachers from me personally as well as what we gave as a PTO. Feel free to use those ideas if you’re also in PTO or PTA of your child’s school!
Step 1: Create a “Staff Favorite Things” list.
Luckily for my girls, their Assistant Principal is amazing and she already had a spreadsheet of all of the staff’s favorite things. Think: salty foods, sweet treats, restaurants, shops, colors, holidays, favorite school supply or office supply, and any other tidbits teachers wanted to share. This list is accessible on our main school website for any parent to get ahold of. If your school doesn’t already have a list like this going for them, create one! I guarantee you, no teacher is going to tell you that they are unwilling to share their favorite things! Not only is this good for Teacher Appreciation Week, but for Christmas gift ideas as well! If you don’t want to go through the shitshow of making a master-list, simply email your kid’s main teacher and ask them to share their favorite things with you.
Step 2: Tie in each day’s gift with an episode theme, line, or character.
Since I am an avid Friends fan, I can recite most episodes by heart. But you can always use your best friend, Google if you’re lacking ideas.
Step 3: Don’t forget the staff members that have just as much of an impact on your child as their main teacher.
For my girls, that includes their “specials” teachers. That means the art, music, PE, library teacher, and counselor. They all get a gift of the day alongside the main classroom teachers.
Day 1: Phoebe’s Relaxi-Taxi:
For those that watch Friends, you know the episode where Phoebe and Rachel brainstorm names for Phoebe’s cab. Phoebe is a masseuse who inherited a cab from her grandma. She wants to combine both things into a job. Her and Rachel decide she can offer massages out of her cab. Subsequently, they fight over whether to call it “relaxi-taxi” or “relaxi-cab”. So with that in mind, I had this day be one where students could bring in any items they thought would relax their teachers. It could be bath bombs, face masks, gift cards to a local coffee house. Fuck, even wine! Go nuts kids, it’s time to get creative.
My choice was to give a lavender face mask, bath bomb, lavender body scrub, and box of sleepy time tea to each teacher. Keep in mind, on this specific day, my kids had all female teachers. If they would have had the one male on staff (the gym teacher), I would have gone a less bougie route. However, even men can enjoy a good pampering! For male teachers, I would have done: foot masks, this Burt’s Bees kit, or this grooming kit.
The PTO’s gift for our staff on this day were mini-massages from an on-site masseuse.
Other fun personal care gift ideas for the teacher with a sense of humor:
If you know your teacher well, they’ll surely approve of these self-care gifts that are hilarious. For starters is this, “Me looking for my last fuck to give” mug. Followed by the “dead inside” mug. And of course the “fuck them kids” one is pretty on the nose. Stuff them with chocolates, chapstick, or gift cards and you have a perfect gift.
Then, I love these peppermint scented shower steamers. Also, this teacher fuel beaded bag would be the perfect vessel for a Starbucks gift card. And lastly, who wouldn’t love the Week From Hell Sugar Scrub that smells like grapefruit and brown sugar? Plus, we know our teachers have had MANY weeks from hell! If your teacher is a Stanley girl or guy, this cup backpack fits over 40 oz. tumblers, is adjustable, and can hold a cell phone and credit cards, so there’s no need to bring a purse alongside their giant Stanley! Lastly, this clear nylon cosmetic bag is also great, and holds more than it seems!
Day 2: Joey Doesn’t Share Food:
Ahh Joey. He doesn’t share food! Not even a fry! And your teachers shouldn’t have to either. For this day’s theme, I chose for each kid to bring in their teacher’s favorite salty snack. Super easy, and inexpensive! If they don’t have a favorite try: popcorn, cheese and crackers, chips, beef jerky, pretzels or rice cakes.
The PTO’s gift for this day was that we stocked the lounge with a ton of snacks and drinks from Whole Foods.
Day 3: Chandler Steals the Cheesecake:
Another easy gift idea is to bring your teacher their favorite sugary treat. It’s also inexpensive as most teachers just list a candy bar or brand of candy they enjoy. I like the brand “SmartSweets” because they’re schtick is that they’re a “healthier” candy. You can’t go wrong with crowd favorites like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, or even gum or mints!
For the gift from the PTO on this day, we had my neighbor (who is a baker) make each staff a personalized gourmet cookie.
Day 4: A Gift Rachel Won’t Return.
There is an episode where Ross realizes that Rachel returns every gift she receives for store credit. So I asked students to bring in a gift card to their teacher’s favorite store or restaurant.
The PTO gave each teacher a $25 AMC gift card. We tied them to bags of gourmet popcorn from Popcorn Bliss. For my kindergartener’s teacher, I reached out to the parents behind her back and had them go in with me on gift cards so we could get higher denomination ones. I asked them to either Venmo me or send cash in with their kids. Then, I cornered our teacher’s husband and asked him her favorite places to shop and got gift cards to her favorite stores. I tried not to get gift cards that I thought she’d use on classroom supplies figuring she needed to treat herself! And then I tossed them all in a Rae Dunn teacher mug of course! With donations from about 10 parents, I was able to get her $200 to Kohl’s, $150 to Target, $25 to Chipotle, and $25 to Starbucks.
If you don’t want to go the gift card route, I also bought some funny teacher school supplies and tied them all together to make a cute gift. I bought this dumpster fire notepad and pencil holder, these tie-dyed post-it notes, funny teacher pencils, and this notebook on Amazon.
Other fun gift ideas:
I also love this book bag, or this one – both with banned books on them. What teacher wouldn’t appreciate that? Or this set of teacher bracelets is adorable. And of course since it’s me, I have to add in funny gifts like this Calm the F Down candle, or this What the Fucking Fuck candle, or this trinket dish. The teachers I am friends with all all share the sentiments of the funny candles, but also appreciate a good tote bag too!
Day 5: Ross’s Letter that was “18 pages FRONT AND BACK!”
Remember the episode where Ross and Rachel get back together after he’s cheated on her? (As you scream “THEY WERE ON A BREAK!”) Well, Rachel writes Ross a letter that’s 18 pages front and back. She basically just wants him to take responsibility for his actions but he falls asleep reading the novel. I chose this idea so that kids could write their teachers a letter. (Or draw them a picture if they’re younger and don’t have it in them to write a full letter.) This gift is free, but also the most meaningful one!
To cap off Teacher Appreciation Week, our PTO treated the entire staff to dinner and drinks at a local restaurant. This year, we did it at a local Mexican joint called Carlos Miguels. And when I say we treated the staff, I mean EVERYONE employed at the school. Admins, lunch ladies, early intervention specialists, etc. All 80 of them! We make a point to treat ALL staff during Teacher Appreciation Week, not just the main core teachers.
For more Teacher Appreciation Week gift ideas, check out my past blog here! And once again, if you want to buy the graphic I custom made, you can get it from my shop here. I hope this helped inspire you! And if you need a little Friends theme decor inspo, check out my photo below. (Items are either from Home Goods or Etsy.) As always, thank you for reading!
