What do you give the daycare teachers as gifts?

[Radosti]

So, by the time the holidays roll around, DS will have been in daycare for 3 months. He has a primary teacher, another teacher and a teacher that rotates between suites. What do I give them as gifts?

[juliasmom05]

Last year, we gave the primary teachers B&N gift certificates and also brought in homemade cookies for everyone else. This year, I may do the gift certificates as well, but I also may bring in something for the class such as art supplies and books.

Marci

Mom to Julia 4/05

[casey118]

Here are my ideas from the last couple of years:

Bath stuff - lotion, shower gel, or bubble bath (I bought at Bath Body sale, gave 2-3 bottle to primary teachers, 1 to helpers and administrators)

Gift certificate to Blockbuster with popcorn and "movie candy" (amount of gift certificate can vary depending on teacher, but gift doesn't look different)

gift certificates for bookstore

candles

I think these are hard gifts so am looking forward to others responses.

[jhrabosk]

Thanks for posting this! I was going to ask the same.

Can I go so far as to ask about dollar amounts? And does anyone give cash gifts? My DD's room has a head teacher and 4 assistants. Plus, I suspect I should give a little something to the admins at the front desk who LOVE my DD. This could break me!

It's probably different in my neck of the woods (NY metro) than elsewhere in the country, too. But I'm still very interested in what everyone has to say!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Last year I had ds help make me cookies and we put those in a box with some individual packets of hot cocoa (I broke up a gift set :)) and got each a $10 GC to Barnes and Noble.

FamilyFun.com has wonderful teacher/ caregiver gift ideas. Really fun, creative ones. Check them out.

I don't think you can go wrong with gift cards though. That way they can buy what they want...and their homes don't get cluttered with stuff.

This was for my ds' preschool teachers, btw.

Beth

[fortato]

Being a previous daycare provider/teacher, I can tell you what not to get... Coffee Mugs. Teachers get buttloads of mugs.

Mugs, candles and chocolate.

I liked receiving gift cards to B&N and or A Simon Gift card. You can't go wrong there. Another thing to look into is getting a gift certificate for a manicure or Pedicure.

If you don't want to go the gift card route- picture frames (with a drawing by your DC in it), journals, hand lotion, ornaments!, I loved the ornaments I received.
Anything your DC makes personally for the teacher is well received too. It doesn't have to be extravagant- I still have the macaroni necklace that Juiliana D. made for me 9 years ago!!

OH- I'm on the fence about totebags. One year I got 4, and then the year I needed a new one, I didn't get one at all.

Good Luck!
Kristen

[crl]

DS wasn't in preschool last holidays, but for the end of the year we did $25 gift certificates to Target for each teacher (1 head and 2 assistants), a drawing by DS for each teacher, and a letter telling the head of school how great the teachers were with a copy to each of them. (This was in the DC metro area.)

[dylansnan]

Can I also post a what not to give, as a former daycare teacher- bath stuff (sorry to who ever suggested it) I had enough to last me 3 years after working in a center through 2 birthdays and 2 Christmas'. Small GC's to B&N, starbucks, blockbuster are good. My favorite gifts were the more personal mini photo albums of the kids and things like that.

HTH

[dules]

The year my DD was in daycare, we gave the main teachers Target gift certificates around $25-$50, the exact amount is escaping me at the moment (they had hinted pretty strongly that Target was their store of choice). The aftercare people, whom we did not know as well (college/grad students) we gave Starbucks cards for around $10. We reasoned that the aftercare folks were not there every day and for not as long as the main teachers in the room.

We are in N NJ, about 10 miles west of NYC. Our daycare was pretty competitive and catty, with the teachers seemingly always complaining/badmouthing parents who were not there. So I felt like we had to do *something* but I didn't want to put a ton of thought and purpose into it (thinking they'd probably complain about it no matter what) so I just went the GC route.

Mary

[tny915]

DD's preschool has a policy of no holiday celebrations and no gifts. What they do instead is for Christmas, teacher recognition days, and birthdays, they ask that we set aside the amount of money that we would have spent and save it all up for an end of the year teacher appreciation fund that gets split among the four teachers at the school. I think it's a wonderful idea. Teachers obviously don't do it for the money, and since our school's in a city, it's very expensive for them to live here so every little bit of extra cash helps. A few years ago, one of the teachers took a trip to Europe with her appreciation money, parents were that generous.

If we didn't have this policy, I'd be doing gift cards or Visa/Amex gift cards. Basically something that would be same as cash.