Teacher’s Helper – Greeting Cards Building a Child’s Self Esteem

Greeting cards are a terrific teacher’s helper to stay in touch with students and develop relationships with their families. Going that extra mile, in my opinion, is part of what distinguishes really great teachers.

But with so many demands on them, teachers need all the time savers they can get. They spend countless hours of their own time on school work as it is, not to mention spending a good deal of their own money for the sake of their students.

I wish I had had a greeting card system during my years in the classroom to help maintain relationships. It would have saved so much time, and made that personal touch with my students so much easier to manage.

Kids love to get mail that is addressed especially to them. Sending that special holiday greeting card is an easy way of building a child’s self esteem. Everyone likes to feel special.

I would send a card welcoming new students at the beginning of the year, and of course, birthday cards and get well cards for the kids.

But I really could have used a teacher’s helper for all that card sending!

As much or more than letters in the mail, kids love pictures of themselves! There’s something about kids and taking photographs that adds dimension to the most mundane classroom activity.

Our digital camera served not only as a teacher’s helper but a parent helper as well.

In the preschool classroom, we used our digital camera constantly. We tried to capture all those moments that parents hate to miss in their children’s lives. The parent who feared their child was a loner delighted in seeing photograph after photograph of their child playing in a group. The parent who missed the class party at least got to see the pictures the children eating the snack they sent.

At the end of the year, we would put all the pictures on a DVD and present it to the parents.

When I taught preschool, my teaching partner and I had a maximum of 35 students between the two-day kids and the three-day kids. When I taught junior high school, I had 200 students a year all by myself.

But I cared for the 200 every bit as much as I did for the 35. And I would have loved sending them a souvenir greeting card at the end of the year to remember our time together. But no way did I have time to take photographs, sign them, and then stuff, address and mail 200 cards!

Teacher’s Helper in the form of Automated Greeting Cards

With the greeting card system, I could have sent a card to all 200 students in less than five minutes. I could have taken a photograph of each class period. That photograph would have become the front of the greeting card. “Remember 6^th period of 1977!” the caption would read.

I can’t even begin to list all the ways I could have used the cards in the preschool classroom! A card featuring our most popular student, Rufus Bear, (shhh don’t tell anyone he’s a puppet!) comes to mind.

All of those ways to connect with my students and for very little time and very little money. Now that’s a great teacher’s helper!