Homemade teacher gifts can be as simple as a handwritten gift card offering one hour of classroom cleaning or offering yourself as the teacher's helper for one afternoon. A handmade teacher gift can also be a personalized craft or something tasty whipped up in the kitchen. These personal gifts don't cost much and are sure to be remembered.
Making Your Own Gift Cards
To make a gift card, use a photo that displays some portion of the classroom, one of the children working on a project or a picture of the teacher working on a project. Use the special effects feature on your computer photo program and change the photo from a normal-colored photo to a brightly colored cartoon. Print the photo and paste it onto colored card stock. Now comes the fun part-let your scrapbooking savvy go to work and place real buttons over the buttons on the teacher's shirt, a real ribbon in her hair or a pair of faux glasses over his glasses. Write in the amount of the gift and a personal note for the teacher. This can be done by hand or by using photo-editing software.
Scrapbook Supplies
If your teacher is a dedicated scrapbooker, she might appreciate a few items that could be used in her scrapbooking endeavors. Using glitter paper or flocked paper as your base, cut out stars, hearts, flowers and letters. Another way to create scrapbooking letters is to cut them from cereal boxes and other food boxes, magazines, newspapers and old children's books. Then create a three-ring notebook to store everything. While this is a simple gift given from the heart, it may take time to collect all the supplies, so you might want to get started early in the year.
Materials:
Using the three-hole punch, punch holes into the bottoms of the bags. Open the three-ring binder and place the alphabet dividers into the binder with one zippered bag between each letter. The zippered top of the bag should be facing the open side of the binder. Put the letters into the bags according to each alphabet divider. If you don't have time to actually cut out the letters, you might want to simply cut out words and toss them into each bag. Any scrapbooker would be thankful the words and letters had already been collected for her.
When you are finished filling the binder, add a photo of your child to the front along with the words "Thank You" in colorful letters. Add a pretty bow to the binder and leave it on your teacher's desk.
Giving an Edible Teacher Thank-You Gift
When it comes to thanking those who have made your day, or year, a little easier, people often overlook their child's teacher. This year try to be one of the few who remembers the people who truly cared about you and your child.
Homemade food items, such as homemade hot chocolate or homemade cookies that your teacher doesn't have to share with the class, will be very welcome. If the items are for the teacher only, try not to present the gift to the teacher when students are in the room. If you must give your teacher thank-you gifts while the children are in the room, make sure the gift is wrapped. That way big eyes won't see the goodies and be disappointed when there isn't enough to go around.
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