Straight from Teachers: Favorite, Useful and Overdone Gifts

No need to wrack your brain for gift ideas for your children’s teachers, educational staff or bus drivers? Springfield Moms polled elementary and intermediate school teachers and found out their most cherished and favorite gifts from students, the best ones to use in the classroom and the ones they have far too many of!

Do you have ideas to add?  Email us with your fabulous gift ideas for teachers, and we’ll include it on our list!

Favorites

• Homemade corn salsa and chips
• Pot holders
• Thoughtful homemade gifts.

• Gift certificates or gift cards for Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Lowe’s, VISA, AMC Movie theaters or area restaurants such as Bella Milano.
• Baked goods, especially cookies
• Board games — for myself, or for my classroom.
• Caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, cash, school supplies (pencils!). I teach high school and would love ANY of these things.
• Things that the kids obviously pick out themselves because they are so proud.
• I especially like handwritten notes from the students or gifts that you know they were thinking of you and know it is something you have talked about at school. For example, one time I had a student give me a bag of licorice – she had insisted that is what they should get me because she knew that was my favorite candy.
• All-time favorite gifs….a gift card to Xochimilco for Margarita Night all summer,

Most Useful in the Classroom

• Springfield Moms reader Jo Ann Isham wrote in with this idea:  “I had a stamp made that read ‘Please return to Mrs. or Mr. so and so.’   This way they could stamp all their books or other items they may loan to parents and students.”
• A clipboard or personalized pens with my name on them.
• School spirit shirts. My school allows a dress down day every Friday so it’s helpful to have shirts with our school name and mascot.
• A gift card for Teachers Pay Teachers
• Good quality pens, like flair pens, pencils, scissors, a mason jar of paper clips, post it notes, gas card or even a $5 gift card to like a grocery store to buy school supplies. A handwritten note from the child is also great (I teach 7th graders).
•  A rolling tote

Overdone Gifts: Probably best to avoid these…!

• Coffee mugs.- You can only have so many Best Teacher or #1 Teacher coffee mugs!
• Lotions – we get a lot of this kind of stuff.
• Most of us have enough cute ‘teacher-y’ things, unless it’s something really unique.

• NO apples.
• Candles.
• Photo frames or sayings to hang or statues to sit.
• Candy.

Need more ideas? Check out our Pinterest Board!