[teacher appreciation] Door Decoration

 

 
We have a tradition in our elementary school of decorating the teachers' classroom doors for teacher appreciation week.  I was asked to decorate my daughter's Kindergarten door for her teacher.  I thought about it for a long time.  Her teacher is amazing!  She loves to read and has instilled this love in her students.  I wanted to do something that involved children's literature.  I thought it might be fun to use an illustration from a children's book to show our teacher how much we appreciate her.

We love Mo Willems at our house.  If you aren't familiar with his works, run to your nearest library and check out a book or two or three or ten!  They are delightful!  My daughter is especially fond of the Elephant & Piggie Books.  The last time we went to the library we really did check out about a dozen of them.  Our all time favorite is There Is a Bird On Your Head .  But I found a fun illustration in his book I Am Invited To A Party that I wanted to use for our teacher's door decoration.

First thing you need to do is to acquire the book or the illustration that you want to use.  I scanned the page into my computer.  Then I used our projector to enlarge the image.

Now you need to trace the image onto a large piece of paper or posterboard.  I just lightly traced the image with a pencil.

Once you have captured the basic image, you can trace it with a black marker.  Have you tried the new Sharpies with a brush tip??  I am in love!  The funnest marker I have ever used.  Not kidding.  Outline the image in black and then color as desired.  I used mostly markers to bring my image to life.  You could also use crayons, pencils, or chalk.  I actually did use chalk to color most of Elephant's body.  It was just too much surface area to color with the marker.
 

Now all you have to do is cut out your image with a pair of scissors.

I had pre-measured the teacher's door which proved to be very handy.  My daughter's teacher always leaves her door open.  So, I had to work around the push bar.  Which was kind of a pain.  The other side of the door probably would have been easier.  I grabbed some bulletin board paper from the teachers' workroom while I was at the school earlier in the week.  You know what I mean, right?  The big rolls of colored paper?  I pulled out and cut a little more than I needed.  When I got home I measured out the roll of paper and cut it to the exact size.

If you want to write a fun phrase about your teacher, you will need to cut out some letters.  Or you could just draw or paint them right onto your paper.  I chose to cut some out.  And I did it old school baby!  I used a large stencil set and hand cut each letter.

I wanted to assemble everything on-site.  So I hauled all of my supplies to the school.  I taped the colored roll paper to the door.  Then I attached my images and my letters.

There you have it!  You knew I would add some bunting, right?  I think it turned out pretty fun.

*****

As I was cutting out the letters, my six year old asked me what I was doing.  I told her what I was going to write on the paper..."Mrs. Crockett makes learning fun!"  Her response?  "She really really does!"

Thanks to all the great teachers out there!  We appreciate you!