Student Teacher Goodbye Gift

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Home : 2006 : November : 10

Student Teacher Goodbye Gift
By CageyBee

The following were ideas we did in Kindergarten and first grade over a period of years. As I type it out I'm chuckling thinking how my sixth graders would LOVE to do some of these now!

My friend made a fabulous gift
for her student teacher...and we all wanted one, too! She painted a terra cotta flower pot on the outside in a pale blue but she left the rim natural. Then she painted grass on the bottom third and added 19 stems and leaves. When this was dry she had each child (18 of them) make two thumbprints...one on a stem and one any place else. The color of the paint depended on their predrawn suggestions

for the "garden". For example, one little girl made a brown thumbprint on a stem and a red thumbprint on the grass. When everyone added their thumbprint she let them add the details. The little girl with the brown center turned that flower into a daisy and her red print was a ladybug crawling in the grass. My friend had a super thin black Sharpie and she added their names in teeny tiny print. She also contributed with her thumbprint...she made a caterpillar with some of the other children who couldn't think of a bug to add.

When all the details were added...and it looked gorgeous...she wrote in calligraphy on the unpainted rim..."Thumbody at _______ School loves you very much!" You could do any seasonal picture and use their thumbs as the starting point for the details. Other sayings could be:
"Thank you for brightening our day!" and have all little sunshine faces.
"You made our garden of learning grow!"
"You're one in a million!" and do snowflakes all over.
"We're thankful we know you!" and make little turkey bodies out of the thumbs and the children add the feather and head details.

Another thing I have done is to tape the children talking about her/him while they drew pictures of a favorite lesson or moment with the student teacher. Too funny!

I also had a colleague take a class picture of us holding pieces of paper that spelled out a message...We'll miss you, Mr. So & So and added it to a really cool frame along with a gift card to a teaching supply store.

I also found a picture of a really great bird in flight that became the cover of a class book. The title was, "We gave you your wings, now fly!" Each child drew a bird doing a task and wrote what the new teacher should do when she has her own class. At the end of the book we had a picture of ourselves wearing bird headbands and "sitting" in a nest made of bulleting board paper crumpled around our feet.