So Friday is daycare appreciation day, and since I am **very ** fond of all of my sons’ caretakers I’m jumping at the chance to give a little back to them. The parents group is organizing a catered lunch for them, and I and some other parents will be spending our lunch hours watching the kids so the teachers can all eat together. This is nice, but I’d also like to give something personal from my boys to each of their primary teachers. Lil’guy has three and Lil’bit has two.
My mom was a teacher, so I know the horror of the “generic teacher gift”. I don’t want to give them something that will clutter up their homes until the annoyance outweighs the guilt and they finally throw it away. But it still has to be *somewhat * generic, because I’d like to be able to buy them all the same or very similar things.
I was thinking gift certificates, but I could only afford about $10 a pop if I did that. Does that seem overly chintzy? Any suggestions for where $10 would actually get something good? Completely different ideas for good but inexpensive gifts? Personal experience with small gifts they went over really well?
Any and all ideas would be much appreciated.
How in the sam hell did you ever keep a straight face when someone told you that ‘Friday is Daycare Provider Appreciation Day’. Especially if they used an exclaimation point!
Just say no to this made up holiday. Give them something at Christmas or if you know it, their birthday.
Zebra, daycare providers are grossly underpaid and underappreciated for the work they do. They’re expected to get a number of hours of training every year to be able to do that job and often they have to pay for it out of their own pockets.
As a former provider, I gotta tell ya that even a simple ‘thank you for taking such good care of my child’ made my day a whole lot brighter.
Other things (for the OP) that did were:
Bubble bath sets. I love bubble bath sets. Scented lotion. Handling all that paper and cleaning up dries out the skin something fierce.
Written letter of appreciation sent to the teacher, the director and, if it’s a corporation, the president. Looks good at raise time.
One of my kids gave me a bonsai tree one year.
If your son’s teachers provide any of their own supplies, than good scissors, markers, colored pencils and unusual stencils are fun. Rubber stamps and stickers.
One year, there was a family of four kids in our center and on the teacher’s birthdays, they sent us flowers. I don’t know what it is about getting flowers delivered but we all loved it.
Gift certificates were never sneeed at either. Underpaid, remember. Sometimes those little bits allowed us to get things for ourselves we otherwise couldn’t afford.
And I commend belladonna and the other parents for what they’re doing.