One of the goals that we have as teachers is to engage our students on many different levels. We not only want to deliver high quality instruction, we want to make our schools a fun place to be.  

This year at my school my colleague, Stephanie and I decided we wanted to have some fun with our students and staff. We brainstormed and thought of the things that our students enjoyed most outside of the classroom work. Our school has different themed weeks throughout the year and the kids dress up on those days in different types of outfits and they love it!

We thought to ourselves, why not have one day a week where the students and staff try to match their outfits. So we created #MatchItMonday! If students or staff come in with a matching outfit, we take their picture, print it out, and then put it on our #MatchItMonday Bulletin Board. It started off a bit slow, but once it got going we have had a good number of students and staff participating. It’s been fun hearing students asking their teachers to match them, and even the staff planning out their Monday wardrobe. We even had an entire fifth grade class all match. This is a great way to get students excited about coming to school and getting involved in the school culture. 

Although this is not the most earth shattering idea to hit education, it really made a difference. We’ve had a blast hosting it at our school this year! I definitely recommend other schools to try it out.

Here is a fun collage of staff and student photos from this years #MatchItMonday:

About the Author: Erik Myer is an elementary PE teacher at Warnsdorfer Elementary School in East Brunswick, NJ. He’s been teaching PE for 18 years.