My son is starting kindergarten, so my kids will be leaving the daycare we have been with for 5 years. These people are sooo amazing and have essentially helped us raise our children. We always left that place feeling our children would be well cared for and that means everything to a parent.

I couldnt possibly thank them enough, but I want to make a thank you cake. It is for an all female staff (about 30- 40 servings). I am stumped as to what to do and I usually have all these plans and designs in my head. I need practice with tiered cakes and I just got some damask stencils I would like to try. But I am wondering if it should be more thank you focused? or more kid or family focused?

The daycare is called Busy Beaver but I am not attached to using the name because it was Panda daycare for 1/2 the time we were there. I am open to all ideas at this point. Thanks for helping!

You could make a small 2 tiered (or very small three tiered) cake, done in pretty colors, stripes, dots, a pretty bow tied around the middle or base of the top tier...and then if you make gumpaste figures, you could make a daycare "worker" with 3-4 little "kids" clustered around her, and a book or something, as a cake topper.... then a pretty banner with your Thank You message on it. That way too they can keep the topper that you made in the office or something to remind them that their work is not in vain!

You could make fondant replicas of the teachers. Then make little scene on the cake with the teachers doing different things, such as reading a book, art class, etc. The kids could be little fondant beavers sitting around the teacher. Sorry, I'm tired right now, that doesn't sound the way I wanted to explain it.

Here are some other cute ideas from the gallery. Search on 'daycare' and 'preschool' and you'll find a lot of other ideas.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1561865

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1680125

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1363494

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1377851

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=619763

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1672905

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1701562

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1433364

I think you should do a whimsical design to represent that it's young and fun (like kids) and stay away from preschool theme because it's a thank you cake. Maybe you could ask each staff member what's their favorite girl color and incorporate each color into the design. A small two or three tier, zebra print in a color other than black, diamonond shapes, bows, curliques, wire bursts etc.. and top it off with the thank you message on the board with funky tappit letters (girly and whimsical). For girls the possibilities are endless.

Here's one that is girly, whimsical but still adult.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1670573.html