My third year of teaching, my room mom made me a fabulous end of the year gift:
All of the kids helped paint a ceiling tile! The tiles come right out of the ceiling, and go right back up very easily. She just asked the custodian for a blank one to paint! (Notice I only had 17 kids that year… boy that was the life. Class sizes are up to 28 and more now. SAD!)
Every year since then, either my room mom or I had my kids paint a ceiling tile. I moved to third grade, then fourth grade, and every time I moved rooms or schools, the ceiling tiles went with me!
All year, my kids have asked me if they were going to get to paint a tile, too. They admire them all the time! So last week, we made this year’s tile! As you’ve probably seen, my room has a beach theme so we made a fun beachy tile!
We use acrylic paint, and I actually just traced die-cut shells and fish for them to paint. I hand-painted the crab (which I was pretty proud of, I must say!) They were soooo excited to see it in the ceiling with the rest of the tiles!
This is a very easy thing to do, and it is a great way to “keep” your classes with you forever! :o)