At the end of last summer, Sara and I were both joking about how no teacher would ever ask us to be the room moms. Which was a joke one should never make because guess who ended up being the room moms in their kids’ classes? Both of us.
My kids have been blessed with really, truly amazing teachers and I am just endlessly thankful for their love, dedication, blood, sweat, tears, stress, sleepless nights, and the time they sacrifice with their own friends and families. I know myself well enough to know I couldn’t homeschool my kids, and I’m so grateful that when I send my kids to school every morning, I know they’re in good hands.
Teacher appreciation seems to fall at different times throughout the year–my kids’ school had teacher appreciation week in March and I know many people had theirs a few weeks ago. But even though we’ve already had ours, I wanted to celebrate summer and show my appreciation for them by putting together little gift…um…colanders for our teachers and created a printable (click here for the file) that I printed out on white cardstock (I’m writing a note on the back of that and my kids are each writing their teachers their own note.)
They all love to cook, so I stopped at Target and got a colander similar to this one. I filled it with a set of cute, inexpensive dishcloths, an OXO Salad Dressing Shaker, a paring knife,a pair of salad hands, and I included one of our Flavor Variety Gift Sets, which are currently sold out, but shhhh…we’re getting more soon! You could easily substitute any of our oils, though, and it would be completely adorable.
If that doesn’t grab your fancy, check out this post that has instructions for these three super cute and easy ideas:
Here are some of my favorite other ideas I’ve seen floating around the internets. In my own brain, I try to remember that teachers have lots of students and that they probably get a knick knacks, so I try to keep things semi-useful. Which, if it were me, would be food, chocolate, and gift cards. And Diet Coke. And Sharpies.
“Thanks a Latte” from Eighteen 25
“Thank you for Coloring Our Lives and Making Us Sharpies” from design. wash. rinse. repeat.
Because…Target. From landeelu.
Hopefully that gives you guys some ideas in case you’re still looking for teacher appreciation ideas. And seriously…to all you teachers out there, I’m giving you a big, fat thank you from the bottom of my heart! I have such a great love from the teachers I had and so much love for my kids’ teachers that I just think you guys and nurses kind of have the market cornered on professions that make a ginormous difference!
Questions & Reviews
As a former teacher, I have to say that little treats are nice but gift cards to restaurants, even $5 or $10 ones , are great ! Think $10 to Poppas restaurants or $5 to an ice cream or yogurt place or local bakery. With a cute card from you and your child. The target or Walmart cards are great too. I have way too many kitchen and bath products.
As a teacher, I’d love to receive any of these gifts; they are wonderful, and I would feel very grateful for them (especially the coffee one)! However, my absolute favorite thing to get are notes and cards from parents and kids that tell me what I did that year that mattered the most or helped them learn a difficult concept. Those items go into a drawer at home. When I’m having a particularly hard day, I open that drawer and read until I feel uplifted and remember why I went into teaching in the first place. 🙂
wait you put a knife in there? ? ?
I know, hahaha! I gave them to the teachers myself, so I didn’t send my kids to school with knives. 🙂
I LOVE this idea and I am totally stealing it for our teachers! I would caution though that some schools have a zero and I mean ZERO tolerance policy on knives, so maybe skip the paring knife?
These are cute!
As the wife of a teacher I always recommend salty/savory snacks. When my husband was at a private school he’d come home with an overwhelming mound of cookies, chocolate, fudge, etc. (Especially at Christmas) Pretty soon nothing looks appetizing & you really just want something salty to balance it out.
Now that he’s at a public school that doesn’t matter as much. We are surprised if he gets anything, haha! (he teaches high school)
I love that idea and I can’t wait to try some of your olive oil! Thanks for featuring my Target gift card printable! You are awesome and I bet you’re killin’ it as room mom!
I am a teacher and while classroom supplies are always nice (as commented above), small personal gifts like these that Kate suggested are really sweet for an end of the year gift! I echo her advice: get to know a few of your teacher’s faves, even if it’s a Coke and a Kit Kat tied with a bow. Thanks, Kate, for your creative, cute, personal suggestions.