Superhero Themed Teacher Appreciation Party!!

In my Organize-All-Things project (brought on by moving to a new home after 11 years) I came across these photos on my computer and realized I never blogged about this awesome event! It was waaayy back in March that my girlfriend and I (she's cochaired this event with me for SEVEN years!!) put on the Teacher & Staff Appreciation Lunch for ECFE - Early Childhood/Preschool/Special Ed. 

Parent Advisory Council plans and puts on this Luncheon Event every year to thank the teachers and staff for all they do.  We've had different themes over the years - this was our last year on Advisory (I was moving school districts and her youngest was off to Kinder) and last time we would do this event so we went big - Super Hero Big! We also added another awesome cochair this year to pass along the torch and take over the event next year. 

The cityscape was way more work than you'd think - but having a couple of them on the walls brightened up the gym a bit! Black paper (from those long rolls they have in the staff room) with yellow Post-Its cut to look like windows. 

Our color scheme was red, yellow, and blue - so plates, napkins, cutlery, and such were all in those colors. The centerpieces this year were cupcake stands. The cupcakes on their own were darned cute but I had fun making cupcake stands.  Each stand is 2 ten-inch cardboard cake circles and one 8-inch cake circle.

I covered each cardboard circle in either cardstock, foam burst papers, or hero-themed duct tape. I freehand drew a few fun logos such as Batman's bat and Flash's lightening bolt on cardstock or felt and glued them on with hot glue.  The stand is held together by 2 soup cans per cakestand -- I added cardstock masks and capes and wrote "Souper Hero" on the capes.  Then I used hot glue to attach the cake circles. I had to bring the glue gun with to the school and repair a few stands that fell apart in transport.

We sent handouts home with a bunch of preschool parents and had the kids color superhero logos to hang up on the gym walls. We also had kids make a drawing to go with the question "If I had a superpower it would be... because..." The end result was so. stinkin. adorable!

Target had this fantastic clearance at the end of last summer on a whole line of super hero themed items - while we were snatching up prizes, cupcake toppers, and other decorations we also scored these large foam "bursts." Heather used them on the wall to list out different super powers Early Childhood teachers have!

Yes, all 16 cupcake stands were unique, and yes, they took a really long time. I firmly believe they were worth it!! Plus, we were able to donate over 30 cans of soup to the food shelf -- with the souper hero masks and capes still glued on!

 Here is Baby Brucie stacking up my Souper Hero cans while I was making the cake stands!

There's no requirement that we (the co-chairs) dress up, but we always do anyway cause we're nerdy like that. I used hero-themed duct tape to make fun masks for the 3 of us gals.  I used elastic for the band and duct tape on each side to make the mask -- then we wore them as headbands! 

 I'm in the chubby one in the Captain America shirt with a mask made from Avengers duct tape, Heather is sporting The Flash's logo with a mask made from generic "Pow!" bursts and Carla's got the Batman mask and shirt. :) 

I'm especially proud of these coasters we made as a staff gift.  With a very limited budget and over 120 staff to get gifts for we have to get creative.  These coasters are made with 13 cent white tiles from Home Depot and a lot of Mod Podge.  Half of the coasters were made with fun hero-comics-themed fabric and the others were pages cut out of a couple glossy comic books.  

First paint the tile with Mod Podge (or a water-glue mixture) using a paintbrush.  We used the foam brushes to prevent and bristles breaking off and to avoid brushstroke marks.  Place the comic paper/fabric in the center (we cut ours slightly smaller than the 4x4" tiles to give a border to each one) and paint a thick layer of Mod Podge glue over the top.

We came up with some appropriate slogans (such as "Not all Super Heroes wear capes," "Raising the next generation of superheroes," and "You're a hero in the life of a child.") and printed them out, cut out, and glued those to the coaster as well.  Allow to dry for a day before painting the second coat.

The back of each coaster has felt secured on with hot glue or glue dots (depending on which of us gals made it, both ways work well) to keep the coaster from sliding on a smooth table surface. We had tons of different slogans and every coaster was unique! I even made a few extra for year-end gifts for other awesome "heroes" in our life (therapists - OT, ST, PT, retiring Pediatrician, Bible Study leaders, teachers). 

In order to put on such a large event (decorating, feeding, cleaning up, setting up tables, prepping food, gifts, prizes, games, and a special award and retirement gifts for about 140 people) Heather whipped up these very helpful to-do lists.  It was easy to delegate tasks this way, especially when we were occupied with another task.

The cupcakes were our only dessert this year (aside from fruit salads) for simplicity's (and sanity's) sake.  The sugar candy cupcake toppers were purchased on clearance from Target and we used an awesome Cartwheel deal on bakery items to order frosted cupcakes.  We ordered red, yellow, and blue cupcakes and added the candy toppings ourselves.  They were placed on the cupcake stands at each table to add color and flair to the room!

Prize table - the game was pretty fun! It involved filling in the blanks on superhero movie quotes - and matching the hero to the quote. 

 I have to include these adorable photos of 2 of my kiddos.  I brought Taylor (here at 9 years old) along to watch Bruce (he was 13 months at the time).  She was awesome at keeping all the volunteers little kiddos entertained but mine were the last kids in the building after clean-up.  I found them in the Motor Room asleep on this mat!