Goodbye Goodies

As the end of the school year draws near, many teachers are thinking about fun (and inexpensive) ways to say "Goodbye!" to students.  If you are a Pinterest fanatic like me, finding ideas isn't too difficult.  There are loads of great ideas and inspiration you can find there and tweak to make your own creation.

That's exactly what I did.  In order to stay within the means of my minuscule *recent-college-grade-with-student-loans-and-earning-a-sad-teacher-salary* budget, I opted for a crafty gift for some of my small group students that required few purchases and more of my time.  (I also made goody bags for the whole class that I will post later).  In the end, I realized that going the crafty route was much more personal and fun.  

Here's the end result:

I love all of the catchy sayings that go a long with candy or fun toys.  "You are the SWEDISH student", or "I hope you have a KOOL summer," or maybe even "You were a BURST of fun in my class."  

You get the idea.  

So, I took three of my favorite play on words and put them into a message.  (Seen below)

It reads, "(Name), you are such a SMARTIE and it was FUN being your teacher.  Have a BALL the rest of the year!"   This was given to students at the end of Term 2 (thus the "rest of the year") but you could easily replace that with summer.  I was able to buy a pack of Fun Dip for less than $4, an entire bag of Smarties for less than $2, and a bunch of small bouncy balls for less than $3.  I was able to give about 15 students these goody bags for under $10.  They only took about an hour to create and assemble, and they loved them!

I've learned that sometimes, the simple things mean the most to kiddos.  If you put a personal touch into an end-of-the-year gift, it helps keep attitudes positive about school so that students just might want to return again in September!

Emily :)