Teacher Appreciation/End of the Year Teacher Idea: A Book of Money

Are you looking for a great way to show your teacher appreciation? Do you have a group of people who are willing to pitch in for an end of the year teacher idea? Let me suggest giving MONEY to your favorite teacher. Who doesn’t love money? It’s the absolute best gift to receive, but can be a little awkward to give. Pair the money with hand written notes or illustrations from students and you have a winning combination for this teacher appreciation gift.

Give the gift of money.

The one thing you will need to order for this project is Book Adhesive. You will also want to go to the bank to get brand new dollar bills. This is essential for the book working!

I sent home an email to the parents in my daughter’s class telling them about the project I was proposing. I am Room Mom for the class and had hinted at my gift idea a few weeks prior to the email that contained all the fact. Here is the email I sent to parents:

I am going to put together a 100 Reasons Why We Love Mrs. White book for her that includes writing and/or illustrations from our kids as well as $100 (fingers crossed). It will look similar to this:

To make this happen I have two requests:

If at all possible, can you please send in $5 (in $1 bills to be very precise)? To send in the money, see below.

On Thursday you will receive an envelope with a few different boxes for your child to fill in (One of the funniest things that happened in school this year was, I love Mrs. White because, This year Mrs. White taught me….). Can you please have your child fill out at least four of these boxes and return them to school in the envelope I provide by date?

If you want me to include a short little letter from YOU as well, I would love to fill her book with even more love. I do not have a blank box on the sheets I am sending home, but you can easily replicate it by cutting and tracing one of the boxes that I am sending home.

If you do not want or are unable to participate in contributing money please know that is definitely fine.

Please, please, please have your child fill in a few pages (4) to send back to me so I can include ALL of the children in the book. Each one is a special part of the class and a special part of the book.

I printed that email and addressed envelopes to each of the children in class. I made sure I put “Return to my child’s name” on the envelope (in case there was a substitute teacher…things were labeled very clearly), and a due date. I know I love seeing exactly when something needs to be returned. I made sure I put the child’s name on the envelope so I could cross it off on my master list when I received their completed pages. I didn’t want any of the children’s writing to be omitted from the book. In each envelope I put 6 precut pages for the children to write/draw on. (Hopefully you can open that word document and edit it yourself. The dimension of the rectangle is slightly larger than a dollar bill). A paper trimmer is going to be your best friend for this project. Your lines will not be straight enough with scissors, so do yourself a favor and use a paper trimmer.

Once I had received everyone’s pages I alternated them with dollar bills. We had 100 papers and 100 dollar bills in our book.

I straightened all the pages in the book and clamped the book together. Using a paintbrush I brushed the PVA adhesive across the top. I waited 2 complete days for this project to dry. After I rescued this project from the claps I adhered some scrapbooking paper and a title box to the cover using Mod Podge. A simple ribbon finished this project perfectly!