Last year for April Fool's, I took a small piece of paper and had my teacher write "koshou" (故障). I then took that piece of paper and in the morning taped it over the microwave timer-dial. Come around lunchtime, there came to be a crowd of about 10 people including kyotou-sensei (the VP), and somebody from the jimushitsuu (staff room) all wondering why the microwave was broken and if somebody was going to fix it or if the repairman had even been called. It went over extremely well as a joke it seemed, but it did backfire somewhat; The first teacher who had seen it had shrugged her shoulders and gone to the convenience store to heat up her lunch. Oops. I had to apologize in Japanese and explain it was an April Fool's joke. That wasn't so funny.
This year, I decided to put a sign on the door to the teacher's room that is closest to the entrance which read: "This door is broken. It will be fixed on April 1st. Please use the other door. Arigato." I wrote the date April 1st to give people a reminder or hint at it being a joke. The only problem is that the sign was too small and all in black (I went back and added some red marker lines and boxes), but it just wasn't believable or seeable enough. A few people actually opened to the door and THEN saw the sign, wondering ever so briefly what to do now that the door is already open, but walking in anyways...
So all in all, a very good idea, but poorly executed. The sign was not big enough, and technically there should have been two, one for each door, and there should have been a little bit more visible with red perhaps. Here's a picture of what I had, the "Arigato" on the bottom being a super hint.
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