Crafty Ideas: Recital Gifts For Your Teacher

End-of-year performances dominate dance studios between April and June. It is a busy time and parents and students are often left scrambling to find just the right thank-you gift for their teacher. Gifts for teachers need not be expensive. In fact, I don’t know any teacher who would not cherish a simple thank-you letter from the heart! However, there are plenty of easy, meaningful, and unique craft ideas online.

Crafty Fun

Ever since I became a mom, I have received Disney’s Family Fun magazine. It’s full of cool ideas for kids and families. I’m not an affiliate for the magazine or anything, I’ve just found it full of cool stuff and would like to pass it along. Recently they published a feature on teacher crafts. In fact, there are tons of simple crafts on the website, many of which could be adapted for studio owners or dance teachers. Have a look at some of the ones I think would translate well:

Giving Tree

This is a fun way to present gift cards from a variety of places. Have the whole class contribute even one $5-10 gift card to stores/restaurants you know your teacher frequents, and you’ll have a substantial and useful gift. You don’t have to do the flower pot. Consider presenting this in a bouquet at recital time. Visit Family Fun for instructions.

Paper Bouquet

I learned how to make these tissue paper creations long ago. They are fun and easy to do. If you have younger children, this is a craft they can do themselves with a little help from mom or dad. They last longer than live flowers and your son or daughter will love presenting their teacher with a bouquet of handmade flowers. Visit Family Fun for instructions.

Picture Puzzle

This one is a Father’s Day suggestion, but I thought this was a cool way to display a photo. The suggestion is that these picture blocks can be used as paperweights but they might also be mounted on a board or in a frame as artwork! Take a photo of your class, a group shot of the school’s teachers, or secretly organize all the students at your school for one big panorama. What a pleasant surprise that would be for a studio owner. Visit Family Fun for instructions. You might also check out these instructions for decoupage puzzle blocks.

Scrapbook Of Significance

For a truly special teacher, this is a truly special project. If you are a parent that loves to scrapbook, collect students’ answers to questions that will go straight to the heart of any teacher. What do you like best about your dance teacher? What did you learn this year? What was the funniest thing that happened in class this year? What is your favorite dance movement? How does it feel when you dance? The idea comes from the Family Fun message boards for Great Teacher Gift ideas – visit the site for the foundational idea and some variations.

A Gift That Doesn’t Open

Also on the above page, I found an extremely simple token of love and appreciation that would be a sweet gesture from a young dancer. Perhaps you’ve seen this done but it was new to me so I will share it here.

Simply wrap a block of wood with wrapping paper and ribbon. Then add the following poem:

“This is a very special gift
That you can never see.
The reason it’s so special is
It comes to you from me.

Whenever you are lonely
or even feeling blue.
You only have to hold this gift,
and know I think of you.

You never can unwrap it.
Please leave the ribbon tied.
Just hold the box close to your heart,
It’s filled with LOVE inside.”

Post your crafty ideas below!

You Just Might Find, You Get What You Need

In education, in leadership, and in business the words “want” and “need” come up a lot.

Education: I give you what I think you need.

Business: I give you what you want.

A successful blog and, if I might go further, a successful dance studio, must live in the place where these circles intersect – a junction I’ll call

Leadership: I give you what you need.

Today I am celebrating Dance Advantage’s second birthday. Yes, April Fools’ Day. I’m aware there may exist some irony there. Anyway, initially my goals for this site probably leaned most heavily toward education. Much of the content, though a percentage fills a need, has been what I think you require… what I feel you should know.

If my only goal was marketing to you, I would give you only what you want. You would like it, in fact you would probably eat it up. But that model is more benefit to me than to you and, while it might better support my needs of increasing traffic or revenue for sustaining this website, Dance Advantage was founded with a mission to support you, not sell you.

As I begin my third year of blogging, I recognize that what I really want is to give you what you need. It’s a funny thing about leadership, that it demands the willingness of both “followers” and leaders to be led by the other. But I don’t really like the word followers. I’m not looking for disciples, devotees, or minions, but compatriots. Fellows not followers.

So how does a fellow figure out what you need?

(S)he asks. Duh!

So, I need you to answer one question for me:

Is there anything you want me to write about?

• An easy and anonymous way to do this is to click on the SUGGESTIONS tab on the right side of the webpage. Or, go directly to Skribit and let me know.
• If you are an email subscriber, feel free to simply reply to the emails you receive – they come to my address. I’d love to be on a first-name basis if you’ll allow me to be. It serves to help me in this mission of addressing needs.
• If you are a Facebook Fan, I’ve set up a discussion area just for this purpose. You can find it here on the message board.
• If you are on Twitter, tweet or DM me anytime — as long as you can say it in 140 characters

You may choose to stay quiet. Just be warned, I do not have telepathic powers.

If you aren’t getting what you want from Dance Advantage, there’s only one way to fix that. Choose participation and most likely, you’ll get more of what you need.

What If You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know?

This is where education comes in. Were I to only ever give you what you know you want, then you’d never know what you are missing.

Many of you reading are teachers. Would this fly in your classroom? What you don’t know sometimes CAN hurt you. So, I feel I’d be remiss if I did not sometimes give you what I think you need.

Part of being a good teacher though is determining true need rather than presumed need and this is where goals come in. Knowing a student’s goals or aspirations helps me efficiently guide them to the path and then get out of the way so they may travel on it.

In the name of education, and if you are still with me…

What are your goals? For your dancing, for your teaching, for your studio, for your career?

I’d love to help you find your path. You can let me know your goals in pretty much the same ways mentioned above. For anonymous submissions, try this.

I will do my best to answer as many questions in actual blog posts as I can. I may not be able to get to all of them, but I’ll try.

Why?

Because it is good education, good business, and good leadership. And because it is part of my renewed commitment to myself and to readers that Dance Advantage stay true to its purpose and be of service to the dance education community.

“We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own.”

~ Ben Sweetland

You have brightened my path, and to anyone who has read even one sentence of what I have written in the past two years, I thank you. My supreme gratitude for those who support and encourage me each day. I hope to hear from you all soon!

Song Lyrics

I’d love to know how you blend good education, business, and leadership?