End of the Year Teacher Gift Ideas

We haven’t done end of the year gifts for my daughter’s teachers in a long time, but I remember it being important when she was in lower grades and had the same teacher for most of the day.

Most teachers will tell you the thing they want most is a personalized and heartfelt thank you, from the parents and/or the kids. If you know enough about what went on to share a story about what the teacher did for your child or how they felt about that teacher, so much the better.

Of course you can also throw in a gift card (teachers pretty much universally appreciate cards from Amazon, Target or Walmart). If you know the teacher’s favorite coffee place or fast food, a gift card for those places would be great too.

Make a gift card a little more special with a printable gift card holder like these from Kids Activities Blog.

Another great idea is to give them a gift of school supplies they can use in the classroom next year. I think every teacher would love some extra glue sticks, pencils or art supplies, and if you can present them in a cute way so much the better. Add the supplies to a basket or Mason jar, or use some of the ideas from Hands on as We Grow for inspiration.

That post also has a collection of cards that kids can make for their teacher, which is always a good addition to any of these gifts. My Little Moppet has another roundup of cards. I love this superhero one from Artsy Mama, which is meant to go with a candy bar but it doesn’t have to.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I also loved to give gifts of papering like foot scrub. This recipe comes with a summer themed printable to thank teachers for a great year.

What do you like to do or get for end of the year gifts? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Artsy Mama]

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Teacher Appreciation Ideas

If you have a little one learning their letters at home or at school, it can be helpful to know a bit about the science that goes into learning your letters and how the experts teach letter recognition.

Knowing the alphabet is the basis for learning how to read, so it’s important to get it down. Kids need to know the differences between letters, to be able to recognize their shapes and to know what sounds the letters make individually before they can start combining them in words.

Proud to Be Primary suggests starting with letters that are meaningful to the child such as the letters in their name. Tracing letters and doing letter matching and other games with letters are great ways to start kids on the road to recognizing letters. Then things like alphabet songs, books and picture cards can be added in to help with phonics and the basics of reading.

This Crafty Mom talks about using the Carnine method for teaching letter recognition, which starts with all lowercase letters and separates letters that look similar to each other (like b and d, or c and e). This makes a lot of sense because it’s not as confusing, and you can learn alphabetical order later.

How Wee Learn uses a slightly different order but the idea is the same, though she also would start with the letters in a child’s name, then go on with the rest of them. This post includes more fun games for letter recognition including digging up letters and taping letters on the floor for kids to throw paper airplanes on.

Looking for more fun ways to learn the alphabet and letter recognition? This Kaboom game from The Many Little Joys is easy to make, fun for little kids, and once you’ve used it to learn letters you can make a new version for sight words, numbers, basic math problems and more.

Early Learning Ideas has tons of letter activities including collages, crafts, tactile letter cards, letter recognition activities and much more. Do one letter a day or a week and your kiddos will know their letters in no time. And be sure to grab these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs, which give kids easy activities for recognizing letters and words that begin with them.

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