Quick Response, Please. Teacher Gifts

giftcards, giftcards and giftcards. My two neices are teachers and hate the mugs, apples, hand lotion, etc. Giftcards to movies, bookstores, coffee shops, nail salons, etc. are the thing they love & appreciate. You can always give a more generous one to the teacher if you want. Small ones are fine for starbucks, dunkin donuts, etc. One idea i saw that was cute was a beachbag, beach towel, and a bookstore giftcard - another was a coffee mug and a dunkin donuts gift card - two very different cost levels.

I give the same, as I know the aid does a lot of the grunt work for the class. Well at least in my eyes they do.

I give the same gift to both. They both work hard and "deal" with the kids all day!

Target gift cards and Candles are always big hits.

I bought some nice water bottles - clear with a design on them. Filled them with hershey kisses and fun size snickers bars. Kids wrote a thank you note/picture to the teachers and I rolled it up, tied with ribbon and it went in the bottle as well. Tied a name label on the outside with ribbon. Looked cute and teachers loved them.
I bought boxes of candy bars (6 bars for $3.39) at the gro store. The kids made small "thank you" notes on construction paper and we tapped them to the candy bars. They passed these out on the last day to music teacher, art teacher, gym teacher, librarian, recess helpers, office ladies, crossing guard etc - super cute, only about $10 for all the candy bars and I thought it was a nice way to acknowledge the people that help out, but rarely get a "thanks".

I give the same gift to both. I understand what you're saying about the teacher vs aide, but the teacher gets paid more. I feel as though they both work very hard, and I want the aide to know I appreciate all that she does as well.

I just give giftcards: Barns and Noble, Starbucks, Panera Bread.

I would give each a gift card, and give the teacher a $5 bouquet of grocery store floweres, as well. she deserves a special thank you. I was an aide. It did not hurt my feelings to not get the same thank you. I was so pleased they remembered me at all. 95% don't! Does not have to be the same. The TEACHER gives the aide a gift for helping HER.

We gave my daughter's kindergarten teacher and Aid the same gifts. They really do both work just as hard and love the kids just as much. My daughter loves giving flowers, so instead of a generic coffee gift card or something, we gave bouquets of flowers to both. I let my daughter pick them out. It might not be the most exquisit gift, but teachers love anything that is thoughtful and knowing that the kids picked it out themselves means the world to them. Plus with flowers, they can toss them when they wilt instead of having to keep them in a cabinet with all the other nick-nack type gifts. :)

Simmilar, do not make it OBVIOUS but you could spend like 5 bucks less!

A Handwritten note, to accompany whatever you give them. Not just a generic quickly written "thanks" note, but a thoughtfully written note, about how you/your child enjoyed their teaching/class etc.
Teachers appreciate this.

Whenever I ask the kids teachers for gift ideas they always say, "Things that can be used in the classroom." They say that because school funds can be so tight that teachers often have to purchase supplies out of their own pockets and end up spending a lot of money throughout the year for their students.

You'd be AMAZED how excited they get about baked things. I made (INCREDIBLY time consuming) cut-out cookies for all the aides, therapists, secretaries and teachers. I also made chocolate covered strawberries (CHEAP and EAAAAASY.) I just got two thank you cards in the mail today so I know they were a hit.

The main teachers were given gifts but over the year I really got to know them pretty well so that was easy. I really didn't want to spend a ton of money but I did anyway. This was my son's first year of school and they made it a LOT easier for me. I felt like I was WAY over my head with my son and they REALLY helped ME as much as they helped him.