Boosting Morale... ONE squad at a time

Over on my Instagram (@farleyfarleyfarley)
I have had lots of questions about my school's
MORALE SQUADS
I tried answering the questions
BUT the overall consensus was I needed a blog post.
AND HERE WE ARE...

 so…

What the heck is this MORALE SQUAD you speak of????

Well basically it is the entire school pitching in to boost MORALE

but in shifts...

Here’s what we did…

ONE -we divided the school into 4 groups…

we are lucky because our school has 4 major hallways and they are color coded…(blue, yellow, red, and green) so no use in making it difficult

 we broke it down by hallways

labeled the squads according to the color of each hallway

and asked those not located in one of the major hallways to sign up with a hallway

so for example my hallway

is the green hallway

SOOOOO we are the green morale squad… duh

in my hallway we have 4th and 5th grade

the dyslexia teacher, 3 rti teachers, and the music teacher

PLUS the best school secretary in the world joined our squad and the 2 gym teachers… because they aren’t located in a particular hallway.

so we have 4 squads… and to the best that I can remember they are pretty much even

on to TWO- 

at a faculty meeting we passed around a sign up sheet…

it was divided into 8 sections

4 on top and 4 on the bottom

nothing fancy… I just folded paper and wrote in marker

each section was labeled with a month starting with September…

obviously if you are going to do this now you would only use the remaining months…

I explained what we were doing and asked a rep from each hallway to sign up for a month on the top and a month on the bottom…

we also asked staff and teachers that are not located in one of the main hallways to sign up with a squad on their months

NOTE*** my squad took  September to be an example of the various things that could be done

and then we passed it around and we took what was left on the bottom…

which ended up being February… Holla that’s a great month to have

and THREE-

so what do we do????

there is only one requirement your squad has to do…

that is provide snacks at one of the faculty meetings… that’s it

YEP that’s the ONLY requirement… not hard right…

don’t be like us and forget the faculty meeting was changed

and I had to call my parents to grab cookies at the last minute…

way to set an example right????

the other squads have done a grand job of snacks…

no pics of this

BUT for October… the blue squad

made a popcorn bar and witch’s brew

they gave us a bag of popcorn and then had lots of bowls out of various candies and you sprinkled your choice of yumminess

in your bag… it was awesome

the witch’s brew was a lime sherbet – 7-up punch

but they added dry ice to make it bubble… so cool

and then for our November meeting 

(yes we only have once a month meetings)

that squad did a nacho bar…

queso can turn a frown upside down for sure

soooooo  providing snacks is the ONLY requirement…

BUT

if you want to go above and beyond

then GO FOR IT

and that is exactly what we did…

my squad decided to do something special every week of our month...

 one of the biggest hits is our snack cart...

and here is what you need for that...

1- get a list of all faculty and staff members so your #2s will be sure to deliver smiles to everyone

2- some cutie patootie delivery kiddos is a must... I made sure they KNOW the school and have personality and manners... I mean you don't want your delivery team to be shy and clueless.
I had these boys last year and adore them... they have been at our school since kinder soooo
they obviously know the school and most of the teachers.
they also are well mannered and can follow directions (one big snack or 2 little snacks per person and one water)
and the BIG THING... they have personality
so when they walk into a teacher's room they are going to bring smiles

3- found an old cart... I want to paint it BUT...
no time
soooooo I just put some nice colorful baskets on it and made a snack cart banner with some left over ribbon
its still an ugly beige-grey color but the banner distracts from it
Hubs has offered to come and paint it for me (insert big happy face here)
plus teachers aren't looking at the cart as much as the SNACKS...right?

4- I asked every teacher in my squad to bring in at least a dozen prepackaged snacks...
anything they wanted
they could spend as little or as much as they wanted...
someone even brought in tiny waters... which is on the bottom shelf of the cart
the middle shelf is the "extras" just in case we run out of a snack on top the kiddos can refill it

5- add a cute banner
and because I want to help you on your journey to boosting morale...
I have added the banner into my store...
as a FREEBIE!!!
click HERE to download it!!!

**** NOTE****
after the kiddos delivered to the entire school
we had a ton of snacks left over and so....
we did another delivery on the last day of our month

 the snack cart was such a hit...
the Blue Squad decorated one up for Halloween and delivered spooktacular treats...
they kept the same delivery team... because... why not... they know what to do!!!!


Snack cart deliveries were not the only thing we did to deliver smiles...

 my squad divided the faculty and staff list up
and we each got 3-5 people make their mailbox happy...
we made sure to include our squad members on the list too
because... HELLO we deserve smiles too.
so we could do whatever we wanted to bring smiles using the faculty mailboxes as our delivery
as you can see... the person that had me... decorated my mailbox (and 3 others too) and everyday I had a little treat inside... I still have my little pennants up!!!
I delivered little treats with messages to my recipients twice that week
and I know some others got hand written notes of appreciation and thanks
and others got a survival pack for the week full of snacks and treats...
I loved this idea because it doesn't require a lot of money
and each of us could put our own spin and personalize our deliveries

another fun idea is...

 the blue squad... had a guess the number game set up in the office area...
super simple BUT so much fun!!!
and some other ideas...

for Fire Prevention week we got tootsie roll treats...

for Halloween the Blue Squad talked with our admin and were able to gift us JEAN PASSES

and right before Thanksgiving break... Yellow Squad delivered turkeys with popcorn.

Morale is such a hard thing to keep up and running... by breaking into Moral Squads... my school's morale has been boosted

it's easy to do and the rewards are beyond measure...

I am going to keep posting what my school is doing to boost morale over on my instagram so you can get some more ideas... I will also hashtag it #teachermoralesquad 

if you have ideas for boosting morale at your school feel free to leave a message here... or even use the hashtag... and tag me TOO!!!