As adults we have fully come to understand and value teachers.

Growing up we had bad ones, ones we didn’t like, ones that might not have liked us and we had great ones.

But as an adult with kids we can fully understand the difficulty teachers face everyday trying to get our kids to learn.

How do you gets kids interested? How do you keep their attention? How do you explain super complicated things in ways they understand? How do you make them sit still and listen? How do you keep up with all the academic rules, regulation & bureaucracy?   But above all how do you not lose your desire to teach?

I don’t have the answers.  But I do know that as parents we need to take the extra step to let our children’s teacher know that we care.

Not only do we care about our children’s education, but we care about those that are providing it.  We need to give them a little thanks.

This year Teacher Appreciation Week is May 5-9.  So get on Pinterest, or Google and find an idea for a nice homemade gift or card.  Or just reach out with a call or an email.  Tell those who spend so much time with our kids trying to better their lives that we appreciate all they do.

I helped celebrate some teachers at my nieces’ school with these decorations.  The PTSO (Parent Teacher Student Organization) got the teacher dinner and dessert during conference days.  My sister (who was on the PTSO for her girls’ school) and I decorated the break room where the food was set out.

I designed all the decorations using graphics from Just So Scrappy‘s digital scrapbooking kit School Rules.

Of course using my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all these decorations is a real time (and hand) saver.

There wasn’t really a great place to hang the two banners we strung them from the table.

My sister made different pies, so we made folded tent cards so the teachers would know what kind of pie.

The mini-bunting flags were used to decorate the pies.  The flags have little tabs that fold over the string to attach more easily.

The teachers really appreciated all the decorations but of course their favorite was the Keep Calm sign.

Remember to thank your teachers