Teacher Appreciation – Best Place to Bee!

Teachers are some of the most amazing people! Being the daughter of a teacher, I got to see behind the scenes. Seeing how many hours are put in after school, before school, over the weekends, and on breaks, I gained a major appreciation for the teachers out there. So, when teacher appreciation week comes, I am always volunteering to show how grateful I am to my children’s teachers. This year I decorated doors, just as I have in the past. The door that turned out the best was a beehive.

I loved the symbolism behind having bees and a beehive. Bees are known to be hard workers, just like teachers. Bees are also known for being busy, just like second graders; especially mine since she has ADHD. Lastly, a beehive is the home, or place of learning, for the bees. In comparison, a classroom is a safe place of learning for the students.

When making the decorations for the door I made my life easier by using my Cricut. Admittedly it is almost 10 years old so most of the equipment is outdated, but it still works well. I also have a large collection of templates. To make the bees I used the “Give a Hoot” Cricut Template.

For the paper, I recommend using the Astrobrights Cardstock Paper. It just has more vibrant colors, a good thickness, a smooth texture, and the color is all the way through; so, when it is cut it isn’t exposing a base color. To give the bees stripes you have the base cut out of the yellow paper, and the accents are cut from black paper. You can use another color for the wings, but I decided it looked better with just the black and yellow. After the two layers were cut, I glued them together using a glue stick. This was a bit time-consuming, so I set my kids up to color at their little table next to me while I glued. This kept them entertained and happy since I was still next to them, and we were all working on our own projects.

Next, I used the Cricut to cut out the letters to spell: “Mrs. Cross’ is the Best Place to Bee!” (The only difference is I used a bee with a period to make the exclamation point.) Whenever cutting out letters, I always recommend laying them out to ensure you have everything before getting them ready to be moved. To take them to the school I stacked them in the order I was going to put them on the door before putting them in a Ziploc baggie. This ensures it will be fast to put them on the door. The only other step I took before putting everything in the bag is I put double-sided tape on the back of everything to make the process at the school faster. This step makes it so that you just have to peel and stick instead of cutting the tape to size, rolling the tape, and/or placing the tape when you are at the school.

The last step was making the beehive. To make the beehive I drew it freehand on a yellow poster board using a Sharpie marker to accentuate the decorative features. If freehand isn’t your strong suit, you can always print a large beehive, or buy one from a craft store. I just felt that having the beehive was an important aspect of the design, and it would be lacking without it.

When I got to the school, they provided the paper to cover the doors. Originally, I was going to cover the whole door in blue paper, so that all the colors were appropriately accentuated; but to tell you a secret, I cut the paper too short. Since the paper was too short, I had the option to cut a new piece, cut more blue, or use a different color. I chose to use green, like grass, and I am actually really happy with how it turned out. When putting the green paper on I ensured to fold it so there was a clean line between the two colors. After that, it was just peel and stick. This is one of my favorite door decorations so far, and I hope that it inspires someone else to do the same one day.