With the kids breaking up on Friday, they’re starting to pester me about end of year thank you presents for their teachers 
Miss Frugal has 3 (yes, 3) teachers that she wants to buy for as she has her own class teacher, her favourite teaching assistant and because she has most of her lessons with the year above, she also wants to buy for that teacher aswell. Master Frugal has only 1 to buy for but even so, that means I have 4 presents to sort out by Friday. In the past (pre frugal days), I just used to pop to Tescos on the way to picking the kids up from school on the last day of term and buy bunches of flowers for everyone. The thing with doing that is you need to spend at least a fiver to get a nice bunch, which works out to a small fortune when you have as many as I have to buy for and to be fair, I think they get so many bunches of flowers that I’m sure they have more than enough without another bunch each from us.
I asked on Twitter and got some great ideas – everything from hand painted mugs and wine, to Treasure Trails and homemade jewellery. My favourite Twitter ideas were to buy small boxes of Thorntons choccies from the pound shop and paint your own plant pots, again from the pound shop.
I’m really tempted to buy some Utterly Scrummy Brownies as you get six individually wrapped brownies but I’m not entirely convinced they would make it from our house to the school in one piece as they didn’t last ten minutes last time we ordered some. I could of course order two lots and give each teacher two brownies along with a home made card and have a sneaky few left over for me
I think we’re going to do something crafty tomorrow, I thought we either paint some flowers (using a hand print as the flower and feet for the leaves) and write a corny message on like ‘Teachers help children grow’ or make some No.1 Teacher trophy penpots.
Whatever we end up making, we’ll add a homemade thank you card and I’m hoping to get some nice little boxes of chocolates from the pound shop. That way, we’ll have made made a cute card, a nice personal gift and some chocolate – we can’t fail with that combination can we?
That’s my plan at the moment but if you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them….
I think you should shower the teachers with gifts. Wine, chocolates, designer handbags….frankly, even tickets for a world cruise wouldn't be going too far!
)
(Can you guess my occupation, by any chance?
LOL Hope you got a good stash – any luck with the cruise?
We've made chocolate truffles and wrapped them with cellophane and ribbon.
Mmmmm can I have one x
I have two kids in school, nursery child has three teachers, and 8yr old has a main class teacher and then two others as well for different subjects. I'm only buying a thankyou card for the main teacher for 8r old, and a shared card for the nursery teachers – it would get way too expensive otherwise!
Some people are getting get 6 presents, I think that's excessive – or maybe I would if I had a magic money tree growing out of the back garden but unfortunately I don't!
I know exactly what you mean – when I was at school we had one teacher but now they have several teaching assistants as well!
We do buy gifts & cards and yes it gets rather expensive x But then all the other children take gifts in, so you kind of feel you need to – then again if I was a teacher I would think it a fab idea.
I know what you mean – even if I didn't want to buy a gift I'd feel obliged to for the kids sake as I wouldn't want them to be the only ones who don't x
I made huge cupcakes for the 5 teachers i needed to supply for. I used edible glitter, put them in individual plastic cases and wrapped them with an organza bow. went down a treat! x
Ooooh can I have one aswell x
I've decided I want to be a teacher when I grow up.. Just imagine all those gifts you get at the end of term!! ;o)
I know – I'm considering a bit of a career change now I've thought about the wine and chocs x
As a teacher, I can tell you that the thing I like the best is a card that says thanks. That means the most to me. Of course, if the card is accompanied by a pack of Cadbury's chocolate buttons, all well and good but the thanks is the thing.
Alex
lol that's what we went for a home made card and choccies x
See I'm a lazy arse and will go with whatever I think the teacher will like…..normally wine as I think anyone who spends 6 hours a day trying to teach my girl will need a stiff drink
Alternatively, I normally buy M&S smellies sets in the Christmas sales and save them for the 'Summer' present…..lazy but frugal too……
lol I bet they love you when you turn up with much needed wine!
Last year my daughter finished preschool and with 6 staff there I didn't want to do the big box of chocs that everyone else did, but a gift each would have been a lot. So we made our own florentine chocs and wrapped them up all pretty in cellophane for each. It cost a couple of big bars of chocolate (one milk, one dark), and some nuts and dried fruit out of the cupboard. They thought it was lovely that we had actually thought about it rather than just popping to the shop over the road on the way in.
I think that's a much nicer idea than buying chocs – tastier as well I bet x
I have just posted some presents I made for my little girls teachers over on my blog if you want some ideas http://www.scratchycatcrafter.blogspot.com. The classroom sign went down a storm If you can sew another another few ideas are pocket tissue holders(takes 5 minutes)
Some great ideas – thanks x
my friend & her hubby are teachers and they receive lots of bottles of wine and silly little teddies from the big card shops. they don't drink so they sell the wine on gumtree and and put the teddies to a car boot sale! So I'd definitely stick to thoughful handmade or unique gifts or something practical at least!
I guess they must get so much at this time of year – we went for a small box of chocs and a homemade card in the end x
teachers like wine and chocolate, but the best presents are ALWAYS the ones thaat have been handmade by the kids
Thats what we went for in the end chocolate with a homemade card x
We've literally just finished 2 chocolate cakes for our teachers. As they're big cakes they'll have to share them, but I know from experience that they're unlikely to make it out of the staff room!
Mmmm chocolate cakes x