Parent Volunteer Thank You Gift From The Heart

This year I found the perfect idea for my parent volunteer thank you gifts and I am so pleased with how they turned out!  I am always looking for ideas that aren't too expensive, or impractical, and that really show our appreciation.  

I always like it when the students can have a part in the making of thank you gifts.  We always say thank you to our classroom volunteers whenever they are in the room, but I like the students having a hand in making the volunteers feel appreciated, and this project allowed for them to do almost the entire thing themselves. 

I combined a couple of different ideas I found on Pinterest to come up with this one. This pin was my initial inspiration.  To personalize the idea, after the students traced and cut their leaves they wrote personal messages to each of our volunteers thanking them for their help this year.  This personal touch made this a heartfelt gift.  My volunteers shared that they loved reading each of the individual messages of appreciation. 

To make the flowers themselves each student traced their hand, cut it out, and the curled each petal buy wrapping it around their pencil.  I gave each student a green pipe cleaner that had a small yellow pipe cleaner already attached. 

The trickiest part for my second graders was taping the flower to the pipe cleaner, but they figured it out eventually.

Simply have them poke the pipe cleaner stem through the leaves with their handwritten notes facing up. 

For the practical part of the gift I found these fantastic plastic pitchers that look like Mason Jars on Amazon.  They come in several different colors and are priced between  $6-$8 dollars each.  I even bought one for myself they are so cute! 

Somewhere on Pinterest I had seen a gift tag on a pitcher with the saying "Thanks for 'pitching' in!"  I typed up my own, printed them out and there you have it! Simple, inexpensive thank you gift that include hand-print flowers, and personal thank you notes from each student.  I think I may have to do this every year!

Here is the inspiration pin with detailed instructions on making the flower craft portion of this gift. Check it out!