When our principal retired three years ago, we did a whole gardening theme thing... Our principal was really looking forward to doing a lot of gardening as a woman of leisure... Sooo...
Every classroom was spoken to about wearing bright yellow, black, or black and yellow shirts and blouses for the awards assembly that was coming up. Each class then made 'bee' headbands for the children to wear. We cut giant 'bees' out of sturdy poster paper for each class to decorate as their card, which would be presented to the principal by the teacher on 'bee'half of their classroom. We went to each classroom and took a picture of the students working on the various crafts and then put all the photos in a homemade crafted photo album(have glue gun will travel...lol...). We budgeted $300 for gifts, which included gold 'bee' jewelry and a wheelbarrel full of seeds, tools, pots, top soil, sun dial, flat hose, whirlees, gardening gloves, apron, etc. There was even a bag of manure! We went over our budget, but it didn't cost the PTO anything extra as we all just kept adding things on our own dollar, but the final cost was about $500 for everything, photos, crafts and cards, gifts, etc. She had been a great principal, a champion of children and our group. She deserved more than we could ever give her, but we did her up really nice.
I still hear from her a couple times a year. She still uses the things we gave her, still looks at the photo album regularly and has kept the cards that the classrooms made for her(29 classes at the time). We know that she is reminded of us each time she steps into her garden. We are reminded of her each time we step into the school yard.
Let us know what you decide to do for your principal!
