Man, including shipping times, you don’t have a lot longer to think this over: it is time to purchase some teacher gifts and get it over with. If none of last week’s ideas caught your eye, how about these?
A gift card to a big book store is like a gift card to OPTIONS. Teachers can buy a fun book for summer reading, or buy books for their classroom, or buy workbooks for the summer tutoring they’re doing. They can buy stationery or birthday cards. They can buy coffee and a cookie at the in-store café. They can buy calenders! Gift wrap! Road maps! Magazines! Post cards! Board games! If they’re in a pinch, they can use the card to buy a gift for someone else. It’s like a miracle gift! I like Barnes & Noble, and they have cute gift cards to choose from.
If you have a Lindt store locally, they have a large bag of truffles for $12.99. They routinely go on sale 2/$20, which is perfect if you have more than one teacher to buy for. Or, do what I do: buy one for the teacher and one for your own personal self. A little treat to brace for summer.
Teachers have to wash their hands a lot to avoid the plague clouds the children give off, so I like to give hand lotion. It’s tempting to choose a fun, pretty, scented one, but I’m so picky about scents myself, I don’t want to give someone a scent they don’t like. I choose a lotion that’s more expensive than I’d usually buy (higher price AND smaller bottle), and in a good brand. This Aveeno Intense Relief hand lotion is super nice without being, like, boysenberry-scented or anything.
And remember the thing about writing the teacher a letter (or better yet, writing the teacher a letter and also writing the principal a letter praising the teacher): that’s going to last longer than lotion or chocolates (especially chocolates).
I like edible things, but not everyone does. But if you do, another good option is to get a multi-pack (or three) of something gourmet and divvy it up. The Dale & Thomas Popcorn guys have 12-packs that often go on sale (or you can use their gift cards, which cropped up everywhere for a while) and then give three bags here, three bags there…
Lylah | May 20th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Swistle,
At Christmas you wrote a post about giving gifts to the pineholes in your family… do the same rules apply for teachers who are pineholes?
What if the teacher is not a pinehole but you are secretly upset with your child’s teacher for, say, being too ______ (flll in the blank) to have any type of kindergarten graduation program for your kindergartner? Gift or no gift?
Staci | May 20th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I do think it’s okay to skip the gift entirely. It’s a strange tradition.
One thing you could do is have your child make a card for the teacher, assuming your child likes the teacher.
swistle | May 20th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Our class made photobooks for our teachers. Each child drew a picture and wrote a little message to each teacher. The drawings/messages were scanned and then placed in a photobook (we used Blurb) along with pictures of events throughout the year. The books are like coffee table books are very personal.
However, it all seemed simple when we started, but the scanning and putting it into the book took far more time than I had estimated (I think my computer burped at more than 400 images in memory).
But I am done and the gift is beautiful.
QlubbCEO | May 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Gift cards are great. Notes from kids are wonderful, too. I still have notes that kids wrote me in my first year of teaching — and I’ve been teaching 13 years now. There will always be families who don’t bond with me (Staci, it happens to the best of us), but I really appreciate hearing from those who do.
Daisy | May 22nd, 2008 at 1:22 am
Last year was the first year I had a child in school and I got his teachers those large boxes of handmade gift cards from Costco. I can’t find a link anywhere, but I believe they’re made by Hallmark and are a great deal - tons of handmade cards in a nice (resuable) box for $14.99. It’s a gift I’d love to receive (and I buy them for myself at the same time) and the teachers LOVED them!
Kristi | May 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 am
I am the designated collector for a group gift from all the moms. At Christmas we gave them a gift card to Target.
This end of year I think we will give them gift cards for AMEX.
momof2lovelies | May 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
I handmake and ok here is my shameless plug personalized fabric stationery. I do boxed set of 8 notecards with envelopes. They are very pretty and elegant. I can do monograms or personalized with the teachers name. I gave them as holiday presants to my daughter’s teacher and the assistant teacher and they loved them. They also come beautifully packaged in a clear box with a tied matching ribbon around the whole box. If you would like to see you can go to: http://prettypeardesigns.etsy.com to buy direct or you can design your own stationery by choosing the fabrics, ribbons, and fonts, at http://prettypeardesigns.com
Thanks for my shameless plug here, but they really are very simple, yet elegant and completely orginal.
Amy | May 22nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm