With teacher appreciation day quickly approaching, I wanted to share couple fun fingerprint teacher appreciation gift ideas with you that I helped make for my own kids teachers last year.

My daughters class did a huge unit on butterflies. They got to watch the life cycle, and even took a field trip to the Butterfly Wonderland. Since this was such a memorable part of the year for the class, I decided to base the class teacher appreciation gift around butterflies. The project is great since it doesn’t cost very much and is quick to do with the students.

Supplies needed

Ink pads – I had three colors I let the students chose from for the butterflies – I got mine at Hobby Lobby

Free printable – You can download it below

Fine tip Sharpie

Frame

Assemble

This project is a quick one and should take about 30 minutes at the most to get through all of the students in the class. I like to set up a little area just outside the classroom door or if you have a nearby empty room or library close by that would work too. I bring three students out at a time and let them put their fingerprints down four times as the butterfly wings. I then use a fine tip Sharpie to write their name under their butterfly. I send the student back in to tap another on the shoulder to send them out so we don’t disrupt the classroom. After all the students have made their butterflies and they are dry. I went back and filled in the butterfly body and antennae using the fine tip Sharpie. Pop it in a frame and you are ready to gift it!

To keep with our butterfly theme for the teacher, we also decorated her door for teacher appreciation week. While I had the students outside doing their fingerprints, I also had printed some butterflies for the them to color quickly. I took them home and cut them out and we decorated the door with them. Her teacher absolutely LOVED it!

Bee

My son had a male teacher last year, so I didn’t think butterflies were the best fit for him. Instead, we went with bees. He was always encouraging the students and telling them that he believes in them so this worked out just perfect. You’ll need the same supplies as above, but only a yellow ink pad. Follow the same steps, adding wings, lines, antanne and an eye to each one after their dry.