Teachers - a question about presents
 

My daughter started kindergarten this year and I was thinking of giving her teacher and her teacher's aide a little gift for Christmas - some kind of homemade cookie or bread or something, and Mikali could help me make them. Does that sound like a good idea? And also, then I thought "And I can make a cute little fabric ornament of some kind to decorate the package!" because I've seen a lot of cute patterns recently.

Would the ornament be appreciated, or do teachers get too much of that kind of thing? If it would just be an extra piece of junk for them to take home, I'd rather not spend my time and effort making one.

I am making mug rugs for grandsons teachers.

My husband has worked as a elementary school janitor for years. Many (if not most) of the teachers give or throw away the gifts they get at Christmas. Cookies are shared usually and other gifts, if you are lucky will be around until the end of the school year before they go in the trash. If you want to give the teacher what is on her classroom wish list. Maybe tissues for all the runny noses, hand sanitizer, anything that will make their job a little easier seems to be most appreciated.

I'm a retired first grade teacher and I loved getting baked goodies at the holidays. It made my job at home so much easier with less baking.
I still have the ornaments that the children gave me, especially the handmade ones. I can't really think of any child's gift that I didn't like. I remember the look on the children's faces when they brought in a little something special for their teacher. It's priceless!
Avoid coffee cups is my only recommendation. Teachers get dozens of cups!!!

if you are looking for the practical... i see so often that teachers have to spend their own money for supplies for the kiddos. perhaps you can make one of those mug 'aprons' and load it up with pencils, markers, erasers, scissors, etc. As Yvonne says, they have lots of cups, so they can use one of those to put it in/over

Well, I'm not going for "practical" so much as "appreciated", but I'm also going for "cheap" since there's a VERY big expense coming up in the near future for us, so I don't think I'll buy classroom supplies. I'm handmaking/baking EVERYONE'S presents this year, outside of my kids.

My Mom taught for many many years, she had a whole drawer of gifts she recieved that she then re-gifted. it was filled with hankies, avon stuff, stationary, candles , soaps in every shape/sent and other general purpose STUFF. The gifts that never made it into "that" drawer were , CHOCOLATE!!! often the box never made it home without being opened. I wonder now how many boxes never even made it home!!! She did receive a few exsquite handmade ornaments and to this day can tell me which student gave it them to her.
She made handmade fudge that we gave to our teachers , everytime I gave one of my teachers the box , they would say, "I know what this is ".."I just love your Mom's fudge". I had 2 sisters that were in grades ahead of me so it became a known/legendary gift amoungst the teachers.

My MIL taught 3rd grade for 40 years. She told me not to give a Christmas ornament or a coffee mug to a teacher. She said she had boxes of them. She really did...we found them after she passed away. I made a table runner for my kids teachers. They loved it. Baked goods are a great idea too. Gift certificates for restarants or movie theaters are too. There are so many ideas.

I always got a Tim Horton's gift card ( Canada's Starbucks)for the teacher at Christmas. They were always appreciated. Most teacher's love a cup of coffee from the drive through on the way to work.

LOL, well, we don't have anything like that in our small town. There's a convenience store, but I don't think they have gift cards. :)