Teacher Appreciation Ideas for Under $10

I am working on putting together gift ideas as Teacher Appreciation week begins next Monday. My schedule has been pretty busy this last year, so I haven’t been as involved in my children’s classrooms as I would like to be.

I decided to volunteer to coordinate a daily gift of appreciation for my daughter’s kindergarten class as both she and my son have been fortunate enough to have the same wonderful teachers. I wanted to make sure they had an extra special week this year as we finish up our family’s time with them {sniff}, and I am assisting the room moms in my son’s class with some of the gifts, so I am pretty much eating and sleeping teacher gifts right now!

My daughter is in a small class and there are two teachers, so while the other parents are contributing a donation, I want to make sure I can stretch the budget enough to do something nice each day for each of them. Here are some of my ideas {fair warning: spoiler alert if you are reading this and you teach my children!} and what I have planned.

I picked up these very cute mason jar mugs at the Target $1 spot today, added a vinyl monogram {available HERE} and filled it with some candy and added a tag. It’s a cute and easy gift for less than $10 a teacher, and took no time at all.

I also found these cute notepads at HomeGoods for just a few $ each.  Wrapped up with some cute pens they are a perfect small treat, and who doesn’t love a new notepad?

Christy got me hooked on these inexpensive frames that you can fill with a printable monogram. This couldn’t be easier, and it’s also a very inexpensive gift. I buy my frames at IKEA for just a few dollars each, but Michael’s had similar ones recently in their $1 aisle. You can design and print the monograms via the “monogram” app from the App store. Then just import it into a photo editor {I use pic monkey} to resize to whatever size your frame is and print it out.

The cute part of this gift is that when the frame sits on the teacher’s desk, what you see above faces the classroom with the colorful personalized monogram, but the back of the frame is also enclosed in plastic so it’s the perfect spot for her {or him} to jot a little reminder with a dry-erase pen. Neat, huh?

Here are some of our other ideas we’ve shared in the past.  I am planning to use these for the other daily gifts this year.

These darling “Thanks a latte” cards make a great gift for a male or female teacher. Simply print it out, attach to a cup of coffee, latte or tea and drop off for the teacher first thing in the AM. I’ll probably include a sweet treat along with it as well since I’ll be bringing an actual drink, but you can attach them to a gift card as well.

{download available HERE}

It is SO simple to make monogrammed reusable shopping bags. These are a great gift, either on their own or filled with year end supplies. Since teachers are often running low by the end of the year on things like kleenex, wipes and other classroom essentials, filling the bags with these makes their last few weeks easier. Or, depending on the teacher, you can also create a summer survival kit with a beach towel, sunscreen, gardening things, etc for their vacation. These bags came from Michael’s, you can order a monogram HERE.

Finally, if your teacher is the accessorizing sort, you can quickly make a DIY monogrammed jewelry {or anything} bowl for their desk. You can learn more HERE.

Our teachers deserve all this (and more) so it’s fun to put together some ideas that will hopefully make them feel special this year. I still have a few more days for the week to plan, though it’s coming up next week so I better get cracking! So tell me, do you have favorite teacher gift ideas I should include?

Thanks for stopping by!

XO,