Team Gifts

I still have 15 more days until teachers report back to school. My classroom is finished, my long range plans completed and steady marking things off my to-do list in preparation for a new school year! Thursday is our first team meeting. Very informal, held at someone's house. We'll have a pot luck lunch and discuss school items, we have two new teachers to our team/school so I wanted to meet so they could get some of their questions answered and talk about things such as field trips and homework and what committees we're going to serve on.

I'm excited to share my team gifts with you! I ordered t-shirts from this company http://teachertshirts.spreadshirt.com/ and as always I had to order some cookies from my favorite shop on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/acookiejar?ref=search_shop_redirect. Her shop is on vacation at the moment but you can look at her feedback and sales to see pictures of her work. I've ordered Valentine Owls, Hungry Caterpillar, Apples and now "Candy" themed cookies with a "3" for 3rd grade! I will be ordering again, probably for Christmas. Trust me, it's worth every penny, these are the best cookies you will eat, plus they have disco dust on them to make them sparkle!

The gift tag says "It's a treat to have you on the 3rd grade team!" and I added some Chevron tissue paper since that's my new obsession. Okay, now for some pics... would love your feedback!

 

 

 

 

Team Building

First, I have to share a deco mesh wreath I made for my classroom door. Look at my classroom tour to see the spiral deco mesh wreath I created!

Apple Deco Mesh Wreath for my classroom door

Leadership must be my "theme" this year. I'm team leader, a mentor to a beginning teacher and I've been accepted into the VCU Clinical Faculty Program (VCU will train me to mentor their student teachers in my classroom).

I haven't been team lead in years, 6 years. Now I'm at a different school, on a different grade level, working with different teachers. I really want to focus on building team morale. We're having our first team meeting next Thursday and I'm very excited. I purchased some team gifts and we're going to have a pot luck lunch and talk about some basics before teacher work week begins August 26th. Basically we don't get to work in our rooms until Wednesday afternoon of that week and Meet & Greet is Friday morning, good thing I'm finished!

In the past we've pulled names and that person was responsible for purchasing a birthday cake for the name they pulled. Then at Christmas we do a Secret Santa all week and do a breakfast reveal that Friday. This year I'm thinking of doing more.

First of all we're going to fill out these sheets. Then I'm thinking we'll pull names and that's going to be your "Secret Pal" for the year. Then we'll give gifts/treats at...

-Halloween (1 day)
-Christmas (1 week)
-Spring (1 day)
-Teacher Appreciation Week (1 day)
-End of the Year (1 day)
-Birthdays

Click the link above if you would like to download the sheet. What do you/ have you done on your team to build team morale?