1. Chocolate & Flowers: I mean, seriously – you can’t go wrong! Anything with that yummy cocoa bean will go a long way toward getting a teacher through the holiday season. Also, flowers are always a special treat. It doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day to give flowers.

2. Coffee: Teachers love coffee – it’s how we survive most days. Treat teachers to a box of K-cups, a bag of coffee, or a coffee shop gift card. Amazon has great teacher-related coffee mugs HERE.

3. Adult Coloring Books: You’ve already heard all the rage about adult coloring. You can read The Top 10 Reasons Why Adults Should Have Their Own Adult Coloring Books and read about how adult coloring can be great Art Therapy for Teachers. Both articles have free coloring page samples you can download right away.

Or get my Adult Coloring Book Pop Art Contemporary  Designs: Life’s Little Luxuries and really make your gift POP! Of course, I’m featuring my adult coloring book for you. Still, you can find adult coloring books anywhere and everywhere these days, and adults and teachers absolutely love the “therapy” relaxation time.

4. Markers & Colored Pencils: It’s a real treat to use nice art supplies when you color or doodle. Spoil your teacher with a set of Prismacolor markers or colored pencils to go along with an adult coloring book. This treat will make teachers feel special to have their own adult coloring supplies. Here are two of my favorite Prismacolor sets. I love their products – teachers will too!

Prismacolor Markers

Prismacolor Colored Pencils

5. Office Supplies: Teachers love office supplies – treat them to new post-it notes, pens, pencils, and other fun office supplies. I like to buy a cute box and fill it up with goodies. This can be done at just about any store, and you’ll find so many cute things to treat teachers with. This teacher gift will certainly put a smile on their face.

Take it an extra step and get some personalized stationery for teachers—cute pens to write on a cute notepad with, and let’s not forget fun gadgets of technology. Every teacher loves to take pictures in their classroom, and this * Selfie Ring Light is a great way to help those pictures come out perfect every time!

Decorate your own Clock: Want to spruce up an “office supply” that you wouldn’t normally think of??? Try taking an ordinary clock and have the kids in the class decorate it themselves. It’s easy to do and could be done with just about any grade level.

I did this with a group of kindergarten kids who all worked on decorating this clock for their teacher. I ordered the clock on Amazon HERE.

It was easy to remove the front cover with a few screws. Then I used a black permeant marker to divide the sections (this is optional, of course) and then had the kids use Sharpie markers to color each of the sections however they wanted to.

6. TPT Gift Certificate: Most likely, the teacher you are purchasing a gift for spends a lot of their own money purchasing extra resources online and around the community for their class. Most teachers purchase supplemental materials and curriculum lessons from Teachers Pay Teachers. Give your favorite teacher a TPT gift card, and you’ll really make their day.

Click HERE to get your teacher gift in any amount that fits your budget. This gift will be a double gift. When you purchase from Teachers Pay Teachers, you also support the hard-working teachers who create the resources on the site. The gift card will allow your teacher gift to be spent on any store on www.teacherspayteachers.com.

7. Ornaments: Teachers are always helping their students make handmade ornaments for their families. But what about making a handmade ornament for your child’s teacher? Recently my daughter and I created pour painting ornaments and paired them with Starbucks gift cards, and put them in a cute little plastic bag. I hope that the teachers will enjoy having their own handmade ornament for once! For more ornament ideas, you can see a blog post I wrote HERE.

8. A New Novel: Let’s face it, teachers do not have time to read – at least not for fun. Teachers work around the clock, and if they are reading, it’s probably work-related – teaching pedagogy type stuff. With the holiday break coming, teachers would love to snuggle up with a good book and truly relax during the holidays.  I recommend buying a copy of a recent book you enjoyed reading and then writing something sweet inside. Something like…

“Thank you for all you do for my child, I hope you can find some time this holiday break to snuggle up with a good book and relax – you deserve it! I love this one – I hope you will too!” ~ Sincerely, So and So’s mommy/daddy 

Don’t overthink it. Don’t worry about what “type” of books they like. Just get them something you love and share that with them. The sweet note inside will be worth it all.

9. A Teacher Apron: Teachers are trendy and like to look cute. Buy a teacher a cute apron from Etsy or some other place. By “teacher apron,” I don’t mean that it has to have child handprints all over it or crayons or anything like that. I mean cute stuff like the aprons my teacher friends are wearing… I love making aprons – if you like to sew, making your own apron is a blast. I made the ones you see on my colleagues above.

Aprons don’t have to really “fit,” so you don’t have to worry about being perfect with your sewing skills (that’s a good thing when it comes to my sewing skills). You can easily find cute aprons like these by searching online. 

10. Pampering:  If all else fails, you can always pamper a teacher (or anyone, right?!).  A great teacher gift idea is to purchase salon services such as a manicure or pedicure. If you know of a good massage therapist, you might get your teacher a session to have a nice long relaxing massage. Nice lotions, perfumes, or essential oils will go a long way to showing a teacher that you care about them and realize how hard they work for your child.

BONUS: No matter what teacher gift you decide to go with, make sure you combine your teacher gift with a sweet handmade card from your child to show your child’s teacher how much they care.  They will treasure anything you give them – so don’t fret too much. To know they were thought of and added to the “nice list” will make a teacher happy!

If you need help getting “stARTed” on a holiday card, you might like my holiday card stARTers HERE.

If you are looking for middle school social studies particularly, I think you’ll like this list of 10 Gift Ideas for the Middle School Social Studies Teacher from my fellow Arizona blogger, The ESL Nexus. Thanks for reading.

Happy shopping! Jenny K.

*Art with Jenny K. LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com