Please help me settle a debate I'm having with hubby. This is teacher appreciation week. Last year the school had us bring a little gift to the teacher each day of the week. This year they've asked each of the parents to write a note telling the teacher how much we appreciate them, and bring it on Friday. I want to make a cookie bouquet for my daughter's teacher and have her bring that on Friday. Hubby says that our daughter will look like she's kissing up if she shows up with something elaborate and everyone else just brings a note.

I think some of my husband's hesitation is because he would have to deliver it to the very young, cute, sweet, blonde teacher, because the hallways at the school are too crowded for me to navigate in the wheelchair.

So is it too much, or the right kind of gift? This teacher has been wonderful and I want her to know we think so.

As a teacher myself, I would LOVE it if someone gave me a gift like that. I think many people don't realise how thankless the job often is - it is years later that kids appreciate their teachers and rarely get the opportunity to go back and tell them. When someone recognises the efforts that you are making like that it makes you feel on top of the world and re-energises you to do even better! But if it is too embarressing for your husband, make a compromise - maybe just a single cookie in a pretty little packet. Even that would speak volumes to the teacher.

I think your cookie bouquet would be a wonderful gift for your daughter's teacher! I wouldn't put too much thought into her perhaps looking like a kiss up. I think she'd actually be setting a great example to the other students and parents on how we really should be so appreciative for our teachers. For the past several years, I've made all the teachers and staff at my kids school special treats for Christmas and Teacher Appreciation Week to show how grateful I am for each and every one of them.

I am making a cookie bouquet for my son's teacher and teacher's assistant and then a small set of cookies for his other teachers like PE, library, music, art and computers.

What I'm thinking is that last year there was probably negative feedback on having to bring presents every day of the week. I imagine for some people that got competitive and over the top and for others it was a hardship, and probably at least some of the teachers said they do not need any more STUFF, they just want to know they are appreciated. The note does that without forcing anyone to spend money and without cluttering up the teachers' homes. I was a teacher for two years, and while I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of gifts, I was already getting overwhelmed with stuff -- and that was only TWO YEARS! If you are saying that every student had to bring the teacher a gift each day -- good grief, say 20 kids in a class and that's 100 gifts. Yikes. I mean, great, but yikes.

That being said, I think a cookie bouquet is a great idea, because it is consumable (although that can be a different kind of clutter in the end). I also see the husband's point about not making the kid look like a brown noser, and I also think it is the kind of thing that SOME people would get competitive about and escalate. Easy solution? Do not take it to the classroom. Drop it off at the office so the teacher gets it but it doesn't become an issue with other kids/parents. Or ask her for a brief meeting after school so you can drop something off.

I have a friend who is a librarian and getting all those gifts, year after year, is a real hassle. Now, she carries the box of gitfts to the local thrift store and donates them. Once you've been doing this for 10 years, your house would become a dump of yearend appreciation gifts. Edible is good: share with colleagues, friends and family, feed the birds, etc. -- nothing to junk up the home or school room.

I look after teachers kids, and I ask them when the school year winds down what they like to receive as gifts:

1) gift card to LCBO (here in Canada that is our liquor store) lol!!
2) gift cards to Business Depot (to buy supplies)
3) home made gifts from the kids (cards, pictures etc)

what they dislike

1) scented candles
2) boxes of chocolates
3) silly little trinkets
(not my thoughts, just repeating what they told me)

Anyway, I think that anyone, teacher or whomever, would love to receive something like a cookie bouquet. I know I would........

Hey mother's day is coming!!! I'm gonna make myself one!! yea me!!

Absolutely not over the top! I just got done baking cookies for the kids' teachers, myself. Teachers are way under-appreciated...........they do educate our children!

I'm a teacher and would be thrilled to get such a wonderful gift!

Last year we each got a plastic water bottle... the cookie bouquet would be amazing! I'm sure it would make her day!

And you can also give the cookie bouquet AT ANOTHER TIME (well, maybe not as I understand you americans do your summer holidays early so maybe this IS the last week of school). But if you do it during a different week, then you are still showing appreciation and you are staying right out of the issue of whether you should be giving more than just the note during the specified time.

Although I don't see a problem with the cookie bouquet per se, I like the single cookie (ok, maybe a few!) idea too. Add in Doug's recipe suggestion to make it a home run. I went one better than that last year; I gave them each a loaf of pumpkin bread, and then I also made those layered "mix jars" where the jar had all of the ingredients carefully layered in except the liquids. Flour..sugar...soda...pumpkin pie spices...salt. Then I had my DAUGHTER decorate the jars so that the gift was from the child too. Now even if the teacher didn't need YET another kid-art jar craft disaster (my dd is in preschool)...she still got something yummy and also ALL of the ingredients to make it again herself.

I'm a teacher, and I'd love a cookie bouquet! I'm shocked that the school is "telling" parents to do this stuff. I'd feel really awkward accepting notes or gifts that were "required".
It's not being a kiss-up. It's being a student and parent who appreciate the teacher. Go for it!
I'd leave out the business card...that smacks of solicitation to me.

I had one more thought on this, just because I'm remembering that for our own T.A. week parents are to have their kids make cards for the teachers, and bring in a flower--it's intentionally simple. If you don't want to worry that your gift will "one-up" most of the other parents' offerings (especially if they think that the note is all they are SUPPOSED to bring), why not just save the cookie bouquet as a wonderful end-of-the year Thank You gift? For the end of the year, it's nobody's beeswax how elaborate your thank you gift is!

Sorry, I know it's late, but I just wanted to add that I have done cookie bouquets for teachers and they all seemed to LOVE them (they definitely got shared among the staffroom anyway, and whenever I turn up with cookies, the teachers decend like locusts!). I got my kids to decorate the pot, so it's not just a gift from me.

I worried for nothing about sending it today...Valerie's too sick to go to school today, little fever, headache and cough.

I am going to send it Monday though. Thanks for the input everyone.

Hope she feels better soon.

Last year we gave my son's teacher a gift card for Rainforest Cafe that was enough for her and her family to eat, and a gas card that would've covered her drive there and back (back when gas was around 4 bux a gallon).

I handed her a card in the hallway at the end of the school day and didn't make a big deal about it..... my plan was to just place it on her desk and leave, but she ended up catching me in the hallway for something else, so I just gave it to her then. I just let her know that we appreciated everything she did for us (peace of mind) and our son.

I think the cookie bouquet is a great idea.

p.s. hope your daughter feels better!

I have often made cakes and cookies for the teachers, and I can tell you it is always appreciated. Now that the kids are older I try to involve them in the project too. Last year for the final day of school I made flower cupcakes that we put in flower pots that the kids painted themselves. The teachers loved them, especially because the kids had been working hard too.

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1237110

Wish Lists???? Wow, that's insane. Not to mention that is asking a lot of parents.
Our teachers have wish lists, but it strictly stuff that they need for the class rooms that our school board isn't willing to pay for any more. Our school council raises money thru out the year and twice a year the teachers submit a list of items that would help them out and we go thru and divide the funds evenly.

We have a teacher appreciation breakfast. The school's parent council volunteers to bring in various items and the teachers meet and have a "free" breakfast. The kids get an extended time outside before the first bell so the teachers can enjoy themselves.

This is almost like trying to keep up with the Jones. Everyone is trying to out-do one another.

Our busdrivers though, they clean up in the gift dept. For those Canadians on here, the Timmy's card are stacked on the busdrivers seat at Christmas and year end.