Teacher Appreciation - San Diego,CA

I'm a teacher, and I so appreciate anything I am given. But, any kind of gift card is the BEST. I would take a gift card over anything else.

Being a former teacher with plenty of candles, lotions, teacher pins, and notepads, I suggest gift card!! Doesn't really matter where...Walmart, Target, Starbucks, a restaurant...

Get a take out menu from the deli, ask the teachers to circle what they want for lunch, and order it for them(if you can bring it to them during lunch break).

My mom has been a preschool teacher for 25 years. GIFT CARD!! Although they appreciate the sentiment behind more personal gifts, after years of teaching they have enough tote bags with thier name on them : )
Favorite restaurant, book store, local shop could make it more personal.
Another idea is a donation in thier name to a favorite charity or http://www.donorschoose.org/

Same as cash gift card, they need it and want it! I know alot of teachers and they love the thoughtful things the kids make them too, but given the choice...money wins everytime :) My son goes to private school and at his previous school (not the new one), we ALWAYS asked the parents for contributions toward a gift card. I ended up getting a $50 gift card from our family, because there wan't anything planned other than the lunch.

As a former teacher I got a ton of bath stuff, candles, coffee mugs, jewelry, key chains, etc. What I found I appreciated most was when the parents went in together to get a bunch of things that I loved such as gift cards to my favorite stores or restaurants, movie passes, etc.

borders gift card. Or starbucks card.

assign parents to bless her for lunch and snack and drinks through out her week. gift cards are great too.

Last year for my son's preschool (& my daughter's first grade teacher) we had teacher appreciation all week. We took a collection and got one gift card. Then we had two mom's work together and make baskets for each day of the week. One was a chocolate basket with cookies and muffins, one was a fruit basket, one was a teacher stuff basket, one was flowers and bath stuff with comfy slippers, and I think the other one was a movie night basket. Anyway you get the idea, it was fun for the mom's to put them together and a delight for the teacher's each day as they were surprised with another basket of goodies.

I agree that gift cards are nice, but if you don't want to go that route, I think LUNCH is a splendid idea. Granted, you have to be ON TIME which is an issue if you are grabbing something from a local deli or fast food joint. Teachers have often just half an hour of lunch. If lunch is 10 minutes late, they're just sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting. But yes - teachers never get to get out for lunch specials. We always bring leftovers or sandwiches or a can of soup (not fun.) We like restaurants.

Even if you served hot food in one area of the school (maybe a room by the cafeteria so teachers don't have to walk far), using crock pots or heaters (pot luck) , it'd be nice for the teachers to be able to walk in, grab a plate and fork and serve themselves and go sit with their teacher friends (no waiting for the microwave, no rummaging for your food in the fridge.) If you do this, do lasagna and salad and bread one day, chili cookoff with fixings another day, deli-style sandwich selection another day, perhaps a salad-bar day with tons of fixings to choose from, maybe enchiladas, beans, and rice the next..... Don't forget to have a good drink selection! And decorate the tables with flowers or a daily theme. Oh and don't forget something sweet for dessert - cookies, cake, cupcakes, even chocolate candy.

(I taught elementary public school for 5 years. I would feel very appreciated if I were fed every day for a week, especially if I did not have to monitor my students in the cafeteria that week. Perhaps you could get parent volunteers to monitor the cafeteria if indeed it is the teacher that normally does so).

I'm not sure how big the classes are or your parent involvement, but we have a monthly teacher appreciation lunch. *Our private school goes from preschool through 12th grade so the months are divided between the grade levels. And ours was just held today which is why it's on my mind.

Of course it can be as elaborate or not as you want. We just collected money from the parents (just $10 per family so not much) and had BBQ brought in. Then we made brownies and cookies for dessert. The teachers LOVE this and look forward to it! Another year I was involved, it was during the winter, so we just had several crock pots of different soups. Easy to do, and again appreciated.

I like gift cards. But, I always make sure it's a gift card for them to use on themselves (no teacher store cards, grocery cards, gas cards, etc.). My son's preschool teacher had a few grandchildren, so I purposely bought her Ann Taylor gift cards so she would spend them on herself and not the grandkids. I usually put the card in a cute tote or something.

One year I bought little buckets and filled them to go with the phrases below. My daughter took in a bucket each day. Teachers thought is was cute and they could put them in the lounge fro everyone to enjoy.

You are lifesavers to our kids!
Thank you for all your hard work (filled buck with lifesavros)

You plant the seeds of knowledge in our children (bought flower packets for teachers to plant)

Because of you our kids are smarties (filled with Smartie candy)

Hugs and Kisses for everything you do (filled with Hershey Kisses)

You deserve a "Carefree" week-end.
You are a much appreciated group of teachers and staff! (filled with gum)

For Christmas (could use any time) we made my son's kindergarten teacher a "Cozy Night At Home" basket. I bought slippers from Target, got the Via coffee from Starbucks, I used the cinnamon and vanilla flavors, a book mark (I made a beaded bookmark but my sister made one and used her son's class picture and then had it laminated), Borders gift card and a cute coffee mug. It was really cute and she said she really liked having it over the holiday break. You could also do a mani/pedi basket and include the things she would need to give herself a mani/pedi and include facial stuff if you wanted. For our teachers end of the year gift, I was thinking of getting her passes to The Getty (a beautiful museum in the LA area) that would include parking costs and lunch at one of the cafes there- something fun for her to do over the summer break. Also, if you know what some of her favorites are you could make a basket of that stuff, our teacher loves penguins so every time we go to SeaWorld (which is a lot for us lol) I pick up a penguin item and gave her a penguin basket for Valentines Day.
Hope this helps.
Take care,
H.

For Christmas I found a Groupon for hour long massages for $5 each! So for $20, I got my daughter's 3 teachers and her dance teacher each a massage. Check Groupon, and Living Social and the Mamapedia Sweet Deals. There might be something like that you could do. :)

For our preschool teachers (there are 6 of them), I usually buy them lunch for Christmas and at the end of the year. Last year we did sushi and Hawaiian BBQ. They really appreciated it.

For my sons kindergarten teachers (2 of them) we got them Target GC's for Christmas wrapped with a large chocolate bar. I would have offered to bring them lunch as well, but his teacher has several food allergies. As one who also has several food allergies, I know that having others buy me food is always a risk, so a gift card is better. I think we got her a $20 GC and the teachers assistant a $10 GC.

movie tickets
candy
car wash certificate (such as a detailing place)
potluck lunch
card/picture from your child
flowers/plants

I always get consumables - like a nicely scented antibacterial soap pump and a little note pad and a pen. Tie them together with a pretty bow and have your child write his name on the first sheet of the pad. Teachers always use that stuff, and don't really need anymore nic-nacs.

We typically give our sons teachers a gas gift card.