Teacher Appreciation Flower Pot

Although I started this project a couple months ago, I just finished it. And just in time because next week is Teacher Appreciation week.

I have this idea on my Pinterest Teacher Appreciation board, and it was one of my first pins. The original idea came from here if you want to see it.

I did mine a teensy bit different than the model I followed. I started with a terra cotta pot, and I taped off the rim and spray painted the base black with chalkboard paint. When it dried, I painted the rim yellow with plain old crafter's acrylic paint.

Next, I took a black Sharpie and marked off lines so it would look like a ruler. My ruler is not to scale, and I didn't pre-mark my lines with a pencil. I felt like living dangerously so I threw caution to the wind and marked my lines willy nilly with reckless abandon. Actually, I was too lazy to get up and get all the supplies required to do it the proper way. 

I even thought about writing in a little disclaimer that said "Lines on the ruler are not as accurate as they appear." My own little nod to Jurassic Park, if you know the scene I'm talking about.

The hardest part  of this project for me was handing the chalkboard markers to my girls and letting them write their own messages to their teachers. You know, to give it that personal touch that says "My mom fosters my creativity and lets me mess stuff up."

What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, right?

The pots come with these annoying little holes that really shouldn't even be there since the ding dang pot doesn't come with a spill tray. Before I could put anything in these pots, I had to deal with these pesky little holes.

Thankfully it was an easy fix with a little tape.

Once that problem was solved, I filled my pots with pinto beans to keep the resident flower pens upright.

Just a little tangent about the beans. They rather drive me crazy. I have a big pot of them on my desk to hold my own flower pens, and my students like to come up and plunge their fists into the pot and open and close their fists, spilling the beans hither and tither. I know it's a sensory thing and it's relaxing, so I don't discourage it, but I loathe the fact that some of them cannot resist taking a few of the beans back to their desks and beaning their classmates in the head with them.

Yes, I know that's fun too, but I do need to enforce my own classroom rule of "No airborne objects without proper clearance from Air Traffic Control."

Plus it's not nice to throw beans at people. You could put someone's eye out.

Back to the flower pots. Instead of putting an actual plant or flowers in my pots, I made some flower pens to go in them. Teachers like pens. Especially pretty pens. Some of us have a little love affair with office supplies.

I'm not even allowed to go in office supply stores unattended.

Book stores too. I like to smell the books and rub the pages on my face. 

Anyway, I have lots of these pens in my classroom, and the flowers remind people NOT TO WALK OFF WITH THE PEN. 

Flower pens that shout.

Recently my students have been giving their flower pens a shot of perfume too, so they even smell nice.

Speaking of teacher appreciation, do you want to know what some of my favorite gifts are? That's okay, I'm going to tell you anyway. 

Our PTO usually does a Teacher Appreciation Luncheon for Teacher Appreciation week, and I cannot tell you how much us teachers LOVE it. There's nothing better than getting up in the morning and remembering that I don't have to pack a lunch that I will not be excited to eat, and that I have a yummy lunch to look forward to. It's the best gift ever.  E. VER.

Oh yeah, gift cards to office supply stores and book stores are super cool too.

The other very much appreciated gift is the most simple-- a thank you note.

I got an extra special note this week from two of my students. They left a note on my desk that said "Mrs. Scott we love you! (but not in a creepy way)."

I laughed because I am always telling my class that I love them, but not in a creepy way. That's because they're sixth graders and you need to qualify those types of things lest you gross them out.

This year I've had to tack on a little disclaimer wherein I say that I love them even though they can't shut up to save their lives. For real. They are a super chatty bunch.

If you're looking for teacher appreciation ideas, here are some that I have done in the past.

What about you? Do you have any nifty ideas that I can add to my Teacher Appreciation pin board?