Ask the Teacher – Teacher Gifts

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I admit it! I am recycling an old post that is definitely needed this time of year! What do you get your kid’s teacher for Christmas?

Obviously it is the thought that counts. Please don’t think that us teachers are ungrateful, but if you are going to spend the money anyway, why not give that special teacher some thing that she/he will enjoy and use!

photo credit: Atsibusk su Vyteniu3 on Flickr

Here is the original post from Ask the Teacher Tuesday: A New Reading Strategy and Gift-Giving!:

I LOVE talking gifts and this actually is a fun one for me, because during the holidays and birthdays, us teachers would joke about our gifts. DON’T get me wrong, we definitely appreciate the kindness and thoughtfulness of the students and parents, but sometimes we wished we could do a “wish list” for parents to see. My teaching partner and myself actually starting joking with the kids early on in the school year of what we wanted for Christmas, in hopes to score some great gifts.

A few thoughtful and useful gifts:

Gift Cards! I think this one is probably on the top of any teacher’s wish list. Gift cards could be for restaurants, retail stores or even salons. The beauty of it is, we teachers know that it is more the thought then the price tag!! We would be tickled pink to get a $5 gift card to Bob Evans, Starbucks or Bath and Body Works. If you can afford more, feel free to indulge your teacher in a larger amount. But DON’T feel bad if $5 is all you can afford. We understand and truly appreciate just being remembered during the holidays. It truly is the thought that counts

Find an interest that you know your child’s teacher is into. I can think of 3 all-time favorite gifts that I received. And none of them were expensive or extravagant! The first being a University of Michigan bell. It was a small, porcelain bell that I could use in my classroom but also after the school year was over, I could place it on my sports wall at home. Believe it or not, that was the only University of Michigan gift I received in 7 years of teaching {insert jokes here…I know many of you OSU fans will jump on that one}. The second was a bag of bird seed. You may think that that is an odd gift to give a teacher, but this particular student knew how much I loved watching birds and that I had many bird feeders in my yard. What was even more thoughtful, he knew how much I enjoyed Cardinals in the middle of winter time, so he made sure it was black oil sunflower seeds – Cardinals favorite seed. To be honest, I almost cried after opening that gift because it showed me that the student really picked up on that particular interest of mine during the school year. The third gift was actually gifts for my kids. This particular student of mine was extremely into sports. It was phenomenal the information he could give me about “who did what, in what year etc” so know how much my Evan is into sports, he got Evan a Nerf Set of balls (the one with a basketball, a football and a basketball) and got Carter a book on sports. I also got a very generous gift card, but it was more thoughtful that the parents though of my kids too.

Now that I have given you a few things that are wonderful to receive as gifts, a few items that we tend to get A LOT of:

Coffee mugs. I don’t know really why parents think we drink a lot of coffee or something – LOL but I got on average 5 coffee mugs a year. I do love my coffee, but unfortunately I don’t have room for 35 extra mugs in my kitchen. Instead, buy them a nice bag of coffee (i.e. Starbucks, Caribou etc)

Candles. I love Yankee Candles but I don’t use up that many during the year. A possible alternative is the Bath and Body Works Wall Flowers and a set of refills.

Lotions. I got a lot of lotions. And this one is border line because I love to small pretty but I actually have an allergy to many of the scented lotions, so many times I had to re-gift those. If you want to get lotion, get them a gift card instead to some place like Bath and Body so that they can pick out something that they will get to use. But one thing that I never got tired of was getting hand lotions, because teachers are always washing their hands and my hands will crack during the winter months. So the mini hand lotions were perfect for putting on my desk and using at school.

Hopefully those suggestions help!

*Update: Another great idea that my good friend Jenny did for her son’s teacher, was a necklace. What woman/teacher wouldn’t love to get a beautiful handcrafted piece of jewelry. And it doesn’t have to be expensive either. I’m not quite sure where Jenny ordered her piece from but there are many Etsy jewelers that do a variety of handcrafted personalized pieces. Go check them out. I just bought a few personalized pieces (can’t say what they are or who they are for since it’s for Christmas, but I just fell in love with what I found and can’t wait to get them in the mail this week! And I will definitely post about them after Christmas so you can see what I got ). I also put these two (one or two and a few others that were similar) one on my wish list for Jeremy to get.