Red Carpet Teacher Appreciation Week

This post was done in partnership with Oriental Trading Company. All opinions are my own.

Being in charge of Teacher Appreciation Week can be overwhelming. I’ll let you in on two secrets that will make planning your Teacher Appreciation Week a breeze…

FIRST – take advantage of Pinterest.

If someone else has already run a successful TAW… don’t reinvent the wheel. Use what works for your school and make it your own.

SECOND – order from Oriental Trading.

They’ve got everything thing you need… in any theme you could possibly want. And the cherry on top… they ship it to your door in about a week. Easy peasy.

Our theme this year was a Red Carpet Teacher Appreciation Week. We wanted to treat our teachers like the rock stars that they are! Our #1 goal was to spoil them. Being a teacher is not any easy job. They have so much responsibility and influence over our children. It’s a lot of work and a lot of pressure. The least we can do is spoil our teachers for one week out of the year.

We are a year round school, which means that we had TWICE the fun! We have 2 weeks of Teacher Appreciation to catch all of the teachers.

A quick and easy Red Carpet Photo Booth was a great way to add decor in the Teacher’s Lounge.

We used:

Red Curtain Backdrop

Movie Night Photo Stick Props

To decorate the rest of the Teacher’s Lounge we used:

VIP Entrance Door Cover for the perfect statement when you walk in the room.

Jumbo Movie Night Cutouts placed around the room for added decor.

Movie Night Table Runners on each table.

Movie Buff Centerpiece for the tables.

Gold Star Shaped Confetti to sprinkle on the tables.

Star Trophies placed around the room.

To save the Room Mom from having to decorate a door… we took a strip of black butcher paper, added a cut out red star (butcher paper) and wrote the teacher’s name on the star with a gold marker. A simple and adorable way to make sure that the whole school feels festive and decorated.

A fun touch that we added this year, was vinyl sayings on the bathroom mirrors. We wanted to make the teachers smile… and this did it! We even had a request to leave them up for the rest of the year.

This wall was a HUGE hit! Before They Were Stars! We had the teachers send us pictures of them from their elementary years. We posted them for a few days with out the names on them. It was so fun to see students and teachers gathered around guessing who is who.

We added Large Metallic God Stars around this wall to make it pop.

On the final day of Teacher Appreciation Week, we had an Awards Assembly. This was the best part of an already wonderful week! We had created a video of the students telling their favorite things about their teachers. The teachers were able to add a little ‘bling’ before walking the Red Carpet. We had crowns, sunglasses, wigs, hats, and a variety of hilarious costumes for them to choose from. The best part is that we didn’t make them wear anything. It was all voluntary. But the teachers totally got into it and put on as many items as they could fit!

After the video, we had the students stand up and we turned on fun music as the teachers walked down the Red Carpet. The students cheered like crazed fans and the teachers beamed. It was fabulous! At the end of their red carpet walk, the Student Body Officers presented them with a trophy and their gift (a gift card).

To decorate for the Awards Assembly we used:

Hollywood Backdrop – this was a large 3 piece poster that filled those lovely gym walls perfectly!

Inflatable Movie Buff – these were perfect! Big enough to make a statement and so easy to set up.

Star Peel-N-Place Floor Decals – we used this straight on the floor for one assembly. For the last assembly we decided that we want to use them for future events, so we stuck them to black butcher paper and they worked just as well that way too!

Star Trophies were given to each teacher along with their award.

Teacher Appreciation Week is a LOT of work. But it’s so worth it! Teachers are amazing. They work so hard. This is one time of year that we can really spoil them and show them how much we appreciate all of their hard work and long hours.