How much do you typically spend on teacher gifts? Do you buy the aids,gym teacher, art teacher, etc. gifts too?

By Bellajoe on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 07:35 pm:

I only buy for the "main" teachers. When they were in preschool, i bought for the assistant teacher to.

I usually spend about $10 on the teacher.
I've gotten them a $10 gift certificate from the teacher store nearby here. Last year I bought a little Christmassy bowl for each teacher and filled it with home made cookies, a pretty ornament, and some Dove chocolates. They seemed to like that.

This year I think I will get a bowl and put some microwave popcorn and a Blockbuster gift card or something like that in it. I'll probably put a few homemade cookies in there too.

By Andi on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 07:43 pm:

I usually spend about $15-20.

By Tink on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 07:54 pm:

I usually get each teacher a $20 gift card to Borders or Barnes & Noble and a bowl of home-baked goodies. This year, I'm cheating with a jar of spicy apricot jam, a container of goat cheese and a package of water crackers with the gift card. I should mention that each of my dks only has one teacher.

By Luvn29 on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 08:00 pm:

Well, my daughter has three teachers this year, and my son has one. So I can't afford to spend a large amount on any of them. There are also special ed teachers in one or two of my daughter's rooms.

I spend a small amount but make sure to get something nice. I typically only buy for the main teachers. If I didn't, we'd have four gym teachers, two music teachers, two librarians, a computer lab teacher, and two speech therapists to buy for!!! There's no way!

This year I am buying for the two secretaries at my son's school, the school I sub at. They work so hard, but no one really notices, and I am good friends with them. The one is in charge of calling me to sub, so we know each other very well...

By Mommmie on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 08:13 pm:

I luck out bec my son's school just takes donations from parents - any amount - and they divide it up among the entire staff including the ones who usually get left out. Last year every full time employee got $165 and part-time got $75. Simplifies it and the staff members get what they want - cash! I donated $60.

By Paulas on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 09:14 pm:

If you have the time I would suggest a basket of homemade goodies. Teachers are so busy this time of year that they seldom have time to do any Christmas baking.

By Reds9298 on Monday, December 4, 2006 - 09:55 pm:

$10 so far.

By Mia on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 02:37 pm:

I guess we're cheap, lol. I spend only $5 - on a Blockbuster gift card, and we include a bag of popcorn. I buy for the 'main' teacher, the school secretary (who wo-mans the front desk & phones), and the bus driver. BUT I spend more on end of the year gifts - I always buy them nice 4th of July t-shirts to wear over the summer. Sometimes, if I've gotten around to any baking, I'll include home-made goodies with the Christmas gift.

By Andi on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 03:48 pm:

This year I am giving the two main teachers each a big Chocolate/Caramel Covered Apple, a homemade Christmas CD and a $10 Starbucks gift card.
I got $5 Starbuck's cards for the two Secretary's and the 3 ladies that help on the Kindergarten Playground.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 05:02 pm:

No more teacher presents. There would be too many teachers to buy for! LOL!

By Shann on Monday, December 11, 2006 - 09:10 pm:

we were buying alot of gifts for each teacher but 4 kids and a few teachers to each so we have started painting Christmas Ornaments for each teacher and small tin of homemade candies. Each Ornament when its dry I put the date and there name. The twins kindergarden teacher has the older girls ornaments that she puts up every year on her tree and she says it always puts a smile on her face when she she's them and she said she sure hopes she gets one from the twins. I think its a little more personel and the kids really love painting. We get them at Walmart in the craft section you get 6 for 3.00. I have ornaments on our tree that I painted when I was little. Its a tradition that We have done now for 30 years. So I hope to pass it on to my kiddos when they have families

By Hol on Friday, December 15, 2006 - 10:59 am:

My youngest DS is in a small private school. Even though he is a senior, we still did little gifts for his two teachers and his bus driver and monitor.

We got small gift bags from A.C. Moore and put in those small packages of gourmet coffee that make one pot. We also put in some Lindor truffles, pens, a memo pad that is magnetic to the fridge, and some Hershey kisses. We put coloured tissue paper in it.

Last year we got gift cards to Borders and I think the year before we got gift cards to Dunkin Donuts.

By Marcia on Friday, December 15, 2006 - 12:15 pm:

This year I am sending in a couple of trays of baked goods for the staff to share. Between all of my kids, we have most of the teachers and EA's working with them. I can't afford to send individual gifts anymore.
At the end of last year, I gave a donation of school supplies to be sent to Sierra Leone. Our school works together with some people there, and some of the teachers visited and took the supplies with them. Just yesterday I bumped into that teacher, and she showed me who she gave the gifts to. She said they were so thrilled. I'm going to continue to do things like that instead of giving the normal teacher gifts.