Teacher Gifts: What Teachers Really Want At The End Of The School Year

School’s out for summer – or it will be very soon. This is the time of year when parents like me start to have panic attacks when confronted with the thought of being with our kids 24/7 for the next three months.

It’s during these end-of-semester days that our appreciation for our kids’ teachers reaches a crescendo. They spent 180 days surrounded by boisterous children and didn’t quit to find a better-paying job. That alone deserves our gratitude! So, what to give these classroom superheroes as a token of our appreciation? The answer might surprise you.

A quick Pinterest search will show you how to spend hours of your time making personalized teacher gift tags to attach to buckets of candy or recreate your child’s classroom photo using stick figures and colorful buttons. But to find out what teachers really want, I went straight to the source:

 “Gift cards are best received,” said one local elementary school teacher, “because we spend a lot of our own money on the kids.”

“Gift cards are excellent,” wrote another. “The best gift I ever received was a collection of gift cards in a basket from my class.”

Additional teacher gifts tips:

• “Don’t assume that all teachers drink coffee. I don’t and know many others that don’t, and it makes me laugh to get Starbucks every year. Target or Amazon is safer.”
• “I would like gift cards where I can buy supplies or items for my classroom.”
• “Bath lotions are usually not the best, as everyone has different needs in skin care.”
• “I appreciate kids who know us and get us our favorites or things we are interested in. For instance, I drink LaCroix constantly.”
• “I’ve gotten beach towels because families know we spend a lot of time by water in the summer.”
• “Most gals love live plants!”
• “If you see me out at dinner… buying a drink goes a long way!”
• “I received a Yeti mug this year. That’s definitely going to be a favorite!”
• “My favorites were always the notes where kids talked about something fun or funny or memorable that they took away from the year. Also, fun stationary like pens, Post-It notes and notecards always have a use. We’ll probably end up giving them to our students, but it saves us from buying them ourselves!”

So, what goes best with a gift card? A note of gratitude – the more personalized, the better:

• “Maybe I’m a simple man, but a nice heartfelt card from a parent or student does so much more than any gift.”
• “What a teacher wants this time of year is space to breathe, recognition of hard work and growth from students. Sometimes a simple thank-you card with a message of changes seen in a child is truly something that goes a long way.”
• “I think a thoughtfully written note of thanks or a massage would be perfect!”
• “My personal favorite gift is a heartfelt message in a card. A thank you goes a long way to a teacher.”
• “In all honesty, if a family sends any note of appreciation or gift, we love it. We do love these kids as our own all year.”

Have a spectacular idea for a teacher gift? Please share in the comments!

Make sure to check out our post on how to prevent the Summer Slide!!