Teacher Appreciation - Lunch

 

Last year for teacher appreciation we had 3 days of "food carry in's" for the teachers. We asked the parents at the school to bring in breakfast one day, lunch one day, and sweets one day. Each day we decorated and geared the food choices to a different book or book series. For lunch day we chose the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We used the book as inspiration for the food and decorations.  We created food tent cards to let the teachers know what each food item was and who made it.  We created the caterpillars on the cards with a circle punch and green and red card stock.  We used the food items in the book to plan the menu.  We had a sandwich tray, salads, cupcakes, cake, suckers, cheese and crackers, chicken salad with apples, and fruit and veggie trays.  I hope you have enjoyed my teacher appreciation series of posts.  If you haven't read the breakfast and sweet table days please take a minute to check out which books we used for those days. 

 

 

 

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Teacher Appreciation - Sweets

 

Last year for teacher appreciation we had 3 days of "food carry in's" for the teachers. We asked the parents at the school to bring in breakfast one day, lunch one day, and sweets one day. Each day we decorated and geared the food choices to a different book or book series. For sweets day we picked the most obvious book about sweets - Hansel and Gretel.  We used the book covers propped up on easels, buntings, and candy to decorate the tables.  We asked parents to bring in the sweets of their choice.  We decorated a gingerbread house for the centerpiece of the table. We also crumbled bread crumbs on the tables as a final touch.   The next post in this series will be teacher appreciation day - lunch.

 

Teacher Appreciation Breakfast

Last year for teacher appreciation we had 3 days of "food carry in's" for the teachers. We asked the parents at the school to bring in breakfast one day, lunch one day, and sweets one day. Each day we decorated and geared the food choices to a different book or book series. For breakfast, we used the "If You Give the Moose a Muffin" series of books to plan out the food.  We used the books and characters that some of parents had for decorations as well as printing some of the other covers of the books and placed them on easels.  We had muffins for give a moose a muffin.  We had cookies for give a mouse a cookie,  We had cinnamon roll cupcakes for give a cat a cupcake.  We also had a pancake station for give a pig a pancake.  We had pre packaged donuts for give a dog a donut.  We also had individual cereals, milk, juice, bananas, and a parfait bar complete with fruit salsa.  We also had some cups that we made with little pigs on them that said hogs and kisses.  They were filled with hershey kisses that the teachers could grab.  We found this idea on pinterest.  I hope you enjoy these ideas.   I will posting the other two days of teacher appreciation ideas in separate posts.

50 States Birthday Party - Decorations and Activities

This is the last post in my daughters 50 states birthday party. In this post I will show some miscellaneous items that round out the last 50 states activities and decorations we used at the party.

 

 

For Arizona, we found cactus confetti to spread about the tables.

 

 

For Kansas, we used our Wizard of Oz collection to decorate at the party.

 

For New Jersey, we decorated cupcakes in honor of Buddy the Cake Boss from Carlos Bakery in Hoboken, NJ.

 

For North Dakota,  We played a game called pin the most center point of North America.  The center point of North America is located in North Dakota.

 

During the party we played country music.  Tennessee is home of the country music.

 

Oklahoma's state flower is the mistletoe.

50 States Birthday Party - Favor Table

 For my daughters 50 states birthday party we setup a favor table where the kids could pick out the items they wanted to take home with them.  We mainly did this because she wanted to have something that represented each state at her party.  I hope you enjoy the items we came up with.

 

For Michigan, we had hot wheels type cars for the favor bags.

 

For Nevada, we played off the Las Vegas theme and had decks of cards for the kids to choose from for favors.

 

For Connecticut, we had suckers on the favor table.  According to the book Food For Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World, they were invented by George Smith of New Haven, Connecticut.

Beads were on the table to represent Louisiana and the Madri Gras Festival. 

 

Hershey chocolates were on the favor table to represent Pennsylvania.  Did you know you can take a tour of Hershey's Chocolate Factory located in none other than Hershey, PA?

 

We made bird seed packets to represent the state bird of New Hampshire - the Purple Finch.

 

For Maryland, we used some fun sesame street bandaids on the favor table.  Jim Henson created sesame street in Maryland.

 

 

 I had the items to create mentos geiser fountains on the favor table.  Old Faithful is a cone geyser located in Wyoming, in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

 

For Arkansas, we had small diamond rings on the favor table.  It's finder's keepers at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. The only public diamond mine in the world, Crater of Diamonds offers you a one-of-a-kind adventure - the opportunity to hunt for real diamonds and to keep any you find.

For Oregon we found compass rings for the favor table.  They were to represent the Oregon trail that Natalie studied at school.  Lois and Clark set out with a compass and mapped out the west.

 

The favor table also had small American Flags and bookmarks that listed all the states with their capitals.  I found these at the teacher supply store.  I hope you are enjoying our party.  One more post to go. 

50 states birthday party - Drinks and Desserts

This is a continuation of my daughters 50 state birthday party.  Listed below are more of the state items we had at the party.  In this post I will cover the drinks and the desserts we served at the party.

 

For South Carolina, we had Sweet tea.

For Texas, we had Dr. Pepper.  The drink was created in the 1880s by Charles Alderton of Texas

For North Carolina, we had Pepsi because it started in North Carolina.  Pepsi was first introduced as "Brad's Drink"^] in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1893 by Caleb Bradham, who made it at his drugstore where the drink was sold.

 

We used the ice for the drinks to represent Alaska at our party.

 

We used red kool-aid to represent Nebraska.  Did you know kool-aid was invented in Nebraska and it became Nebraska's official state soft drink in 1998?  I didn't either until we started planning this party.

 

For Vermont, we served Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Did you know you can take a tour in Vermont at Ben & Jerry's Waterbury Factory?  If we ever visit Vermonth this will definitely be on our list of things to do.

 

For Massachusetts, we served Krispy Kreme donuts.  I know, this was a mistake.  I love donuts and got this one mixed up.  Krispy Kreme does not have any affiliation with Massachusetts that I know of.  It was supposed to be Dunkin Donuts.  Dunkin Donuts is based in Canton, Massachusetts.  If you have a party please get Dunkin Donuts for Massachusetts.  Krispy Kreme was actually started in North Carolina. :)  Oops.  But guess what my party guests had no idea so we are o.k.

 

For Missouri we had ice cream cones.  The walk-away edible ice cream cone made its American debut at the 1904 Saint Louis World's Fair.

 

For Illinois we had a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.  The first Dairy Queen store opened in 1940 in Joliet, Illinois

 

I hope you enjoyed these ideas.  More pictures of the 50 state party and the favor table will be coming up next.