Teacher’s Skirt Lets Kids Express Themselves

Bonner, who works at McAuliffe Elementary School in Highland Village, Texas, invited students to doodle on the skirt of her dress as a project last year. Then, she wore it to an art show.

my mom is the cutest art teacher ever!! She made a dress and had every one of her students draw one thing on the dress for her to wear. This was her at her student’s art show tonight. IM SOBBING

A photo posted by her daughter, Charlece Lake, on Twitter has since gone viral — charming the internet with the lovely gesture.

“I love that my kids learned to collaborate with the entire school,” Bonner told TODAY Style in an email. “They worked as a collective team to create images that they knew I would appreciate wearing.”

The drawings also had to be tiny since they had to fit all 580 students’ artwork on the outfit.

“They were so careful and thoughtful,” she said. “You can see a ton of rainbows, hearts, flowers, dogs, unicorns, superheroes, paintbrushes and emojis! All things I love! It was quite a special experience.”

It took about two weeks to finish the skirt of the dress, which had been left out in the front of Bonner’s room in order for the kids to take turns adding their artwork.

She wore the dress (only the skirt itself is decorated) to her school’s art show last May for the first time and then brought it out again at the end of last week for the district’s art show.

“My daughter asked to take a picture of me as I was walking to get in the car, so I turned around and pulled up the edge of the dress so she could get all the doodles in the photo,” Bonner said. “I didn’t even know she posted it to her Twitter!”

The photos have been retweeted more than 12,000 times and received about 109,000 likes.

“My immediate reaction was I was happy that art and something positive was getting a little love,” she said. “I hope other future teachers see this and get excited and inspired.”

Bonner got the idea from a private Facebook group for elementary school art teachers, and she’s always looking for ways to involve the whole school in collaborations like a butterfly garden, or making a mural out of bottle caps.

That means she’s not done finding ways to keep kids engaged with art. “My new students and my kindergartners need the opportunity to be a part of a doodle dress,” she said. “I just need to order a new, plain white dress off Amazon!”

We can’t wait to see the next masterpiece!