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The Now: Choosing the Perfect Personalized Gift for Teacher Appreciation Week

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Personalized gifts always seem a little more…

Well, personalized.

There’s nothing quite like a personalized gift to help students remember the teacher’s name and teachers feel truly appreciated.  

Personalized gifts also take a little more time and planning on the behalf of the student…or more likely that student’s parents.

Gifts that you can have customized with your teacher’s name, the school mascot or slogan.

Bookmarks are great teacher gifts, especially for reading and English teachers.

Bookplates: Just like book stamps, personalized bookplates are a great way of making sure that a teacher’s prized book collection stays intact.

Bracelets: I know that I previously said that jewelry was probably not as appreciated as other gifts, such as gift cards. But for some reason, teachers love seeing their name on bracelets…maybe because it helps their students remember their names.

Clipboards Clipboards are always useful and practical gifts for a teacher, but a personalized clipboard always comes in handy.

Name Plates: If the teacher that you’re buying a gift for is anything like my daughter, you will never see her without a Stanley. But how many times have you had to pour yourself a new drink because you couldn’t figure out whick of two identical cups or glasses really belonged to you. So why not buy a vustomizrf Name PlateIlike this one to help your favorite teacher keep up with her favorite cup.

Notebooks are another practical gift…and buying one for your favorite teacher will keep her from having to buy her own.

PencilsRemember how excited you were when you finally got your very own set of pencils with your own name emblazoned on them…Perhaps teachers are really grown-up school children…still excited to buy school supplies…but all year round now, instead of simply once a year.

‘Stamps Customized stamps are a great gift…and might be a good way to keep books from permanently being checked out of that teacher’s classroom.

Stationery: Having received so many well-chosen gifts, the teacher will…or at least should…want to sit down and write a real thank your note using a real pen. That would be really nice and would really mean so much more than a simple email or spoken “thank you.”

Tote Bags: I laugh and say that my daughter is already a “bag lady”…she is always excited to buy yet another tote bag to add to her ever-growing collection.

Water Bottle: Water bottles are another item that can find its way to the lost and found rack…never to be seen again. Having your name on your water bottle hopefully will keep it from being lost.

Whiteboard Markers and Eraser: Perhaps no other will be used on a daily…or evenly hourly…basis that a whiteboard eraser and markers. Kids today will never experience the joy of having to shell peas or butterbeans…or having to knock two chalkboard erasers together to clean them.

Welcome Sign.: Finally, welcome signs are a welcome gift, especially at the beginning of the school year.

The Now: Choosing the Perfect Gift for Teacher Appreciation Week

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Growing up, I always heard the quote “Those who can’t teach.”

Sitting in a major financial institution in my own private office with a window view confirmed that fact to me for about a decade.

But…

Then I had kids and became a stay-at-home mom to three girls.

That was about 30 years ago.

Now my girls are all grown up.

And my youngest daughter is a kindergarten teacher…not necessarily because she “could,” because she “could” have done anything that she set her mind to…

But because she felt that this was truly calling.

This morning I bought a rug for her kindergarten classroom.

She’s so excited.

But I find myself thinking about all of the teacher gifts that I have bought throughout the years…and which ones were appreciated, which ones not.

And coming up with a plan to give my favorite teacher motivation and appreciation for what she does every single day…

Even though teachers are perhaps the only people with three month vacations each year.

Thank God for summer.

But more importantly, thank God for teachers.

You want to actually put some thought and effort into the gifts that you give your children’s teachers.

It is important that you buy gifts that your teacher…or daughter …actually wants, not what she (or he) will simply politely accept and has to be “fake nice” to convince you that the gift is truly appreciated..

Hate to say it, but many of the teacher gifts that my daughter received during her first few years of teaching, before she left home, were simply left at my house and being donated to charity.

I have no reason for a dozen dozen cups that say something like “World’s Best Teacher” on them. I definitely did not receive that calling in my life…

You also want to avoid…

food gifts because of allergies and dietary preferences

scented/frangrant gifts because of allergies

trite apple-themed or “World’s Best Teacher” items.

very expensive gifts because many school districts place limits on gifts in order to prevent favoritism

Instead consider giving…

Gift Cards: Gift cards are perhaps the one most appreciated gift that you can give.

Why?

Because the teacher can choose to buy something for her class, her classroom and even herself.

The gift cards that teachers tend to appreciate the most are Amazon, Starbucks and Target.

Personalized or customized gifts (teacher’s name, initial, or a specific message)

Practical Gifts: Practical and useful gifts – organizaers – that will get used every day and provide ongoing reminders of your appreciation.

School Supplies: The average teacher spends about %750 of her own money each year out of her own pocket on classroom supplies…(trust me, I was the one funding these purchases for the first few years of my daughter’s teaching career.” So classroom supplies are always a welcome gift.

Self-Care Gifts: Gifts that help a teacher relax are much appreciated also. After all, if you add the amount of “off work” time that teacher spend grading papers and preparing lessons, you will realize that teachers work an average of 52 hours per week.

Sentimental gifts: These are those gifts that reflect the teacher’s personality, interests or lifestyle. For example, my daughter would be perfectly content if her students could simply keep money on her

Unexpected gestures throughout the year often can mean the most…as opposed to the somewhat-expected gifts at Christmas aand the end of the school year.

For this reason, I have come up with 36 teacher gift ideas – one for each week of six six-week six weeks…(however you say that)…

And six gifts in each of the following categories:

Personalized or Customized Gifts

Self Care

Student-Focused Supplies

Teacher-Focused Supplies

“Trite” Gifts

Coffee Gifts

The Mother of All Modern Mothers

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And so where did the study of home economics take place?

Who first recognized the need to teach these basic “life skills” to college women, and the few college men that signed up for these classes, in the late 1800s?

Perhaps the mother of mothers…the one person responsible for first teaching women how to be homemakers and mothers was Mary  Beaumont Welch.

Welch was a professor at Iowa State Agricultural College, the school that would eventually become known as Iowa State..

Welch taught classes in botany, chemistry, geology, physics and physiology at the Iowa Agricultural College.

She was married to Adonijah Welch, a U.S. senator from Florida and later the first president of Iowa State Agricultural College from 1869 until 1883.

As a young woman, Welch had trained in “domestic skills” in both New York and London. This training helped Welch realize that Americans did not understand or appreciate the importance of home economics.

As the wife of the college president, Welch had a unique opportunity to teach the importance of domestic skills.

She began teaching the very first college-level “home economics” classes.

She began in 1872 by teaching classes on cooking in her home.

Within three years, she had established a Department of Domestic Economy, complete with its own fully-equipped kitchen…the first such facility at any American college. She served as head of this department from 1875 to 1883. 

Lectures given by Welch included lectures on home furnishing and arrangement, water supply and drainage, labor management, health care and nursing, accounting, hospitality, etiquette and entertaining.

Welch also realized that there were no textbooks or even reference materials designed for teaching home economics.

So she began writing a book that would share the information that she had been teaching in her classes.

Her goal was to show that household management was “a practical endeavor and of great importance to the social welfare of the community and nation.”  She wanted to improve dietary standards and living conditions in Iowa by training college women as “proper homemakers.”

The book was published in 1884 and simply called “Mrs. Welch’s Cookbook.”

Even though these days, none of us could actually attend her lectures, her cookbook is still available to those interested in the beginning days of home economics.

Honestly, I haven’t read this book yet. I just ordered it from Amazon.

But this is the one non-fiction book that I will be reading this month. Should be interesting. Come read it with me so that we can share what we learn.

They Seriously Called It “Domestic Economy”

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And so where did the study of home economics take place?

Who first recognized the need to teach these basic “life skills” to college women, and the few college men that signed up for these classes, in the late 1800s?

Perhaps the mother of mothers…the one person responsible for first teaching women how to be homemakers and mothers was Mary  Beaumont Welch.

Welch was a professor at Iowa State Agricultural College, the school that would eventually become known as Iowa State..

Welch taught classes in botany, chemistry, geology, physics and physiology at the Iowa Agricultural College.

She was married to Adonijah Welch, a U.S. senator from Florida and later the first president of Iowa State Agricultural College from 1869 until 1883.

As a young woman, Welch had trained in “domestic skills” in both New York and London. This training helped Welch realize that Americans did not understand or appreciate the importance of home economics.

As the wife of the college president, Welch had a unique opportunity to teach the importance of domestic skills.

She began teaching the very first college-level “home economics” classes.

She began in 1872 by teaching classes on cooking in her home.

Within three years, she had established a Department of Domestic Economy, complete with its own fully-equipped kitchen…the first such facility at any American college. She served as head of this department from 1875 to 1883. 

Lectures given by Welch included lectures on home furnishing and arrangement, water supply and drainage, labor management, health care and nursing, accounting, hospitality, etiquette and entertaining.

Welch also realized that there were no textbooks or even reference materials designed for teaching home economics.

So she began writing a book that would share the information that she had been teaching in her classes.

Her goal was to show that household management was “a practical endeavor and of great importance to the social welfare of the community and nation.”  She wanted to improve dietary standards and living conditions in Iowa by training college women as “proper homemakers.”

The book was published in 1884 and simply called “Mrs. Welch’s Cookbook.”

Even though these days, none of us could actually attend her lectures, her cookbook is still available to those interested in the beginning days of home economics.

Honestly, I haven’t read this book yet. I just ordered it from Amazon.

But this is the one non-fiction book that I will be reading this month. Should be interesting. Come read it with me so that we can share what we learn.

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