Valentine's Day Teacher Gift Guide

Hey, it's Natalie and welcome back to Primary Focus. I'm so glad you're here today. Happy Valentine's Day, my friends. What a fun holiday where you get the excuse just to remind the people in your life that are great how much you love them.

I am definitely a person that celebrates Valentine's Day. I just put two cards in the mail to my grandmother's, wishing them a happy Valentine's day, and you know, my husband's gonna be taking me out.

I loved working in elementary school during this time. It is so sweet to see the kids come in and just share all of their happy feelings with their classmates.

If you are watching this video right now, it might mean there's a teacher in your life that's special to you that you wanna spoil a little bit extra this Valentine's day.

Now, Valentine's day is not a big gift-giving holiday for teachers. Typically that comes around the holidays or the end of the school year. I'm gonna focus in on gifts that are free or under $10.

Here's what I wanna talk about during this video. Five good gift ideas and two bad ideas.

Gift number one, a personalized gift. If your class has taken their class picture already, you can have some fun with that picture. Maybe you get a copy and you put it in a nice frame for them to keep in the classroom. Or you could go on sites like Shutterfly and get it printed on a mouse pad or on a magnet. A lot of teachers have furniture that's magnetic, like they're filing cabinets. So a magnetic picture is always a really nice thing to decorate the side of that, if you don't have the class picture yet, consider something like personalized stickers.

They make really cute stickers and stamps. For teachers that might say something like, from the classroom of Ms. Parmenter, or, please return to this teacher's name. That's a great personalized gift to let them know that you kind of want the extra mile trying to do something special for them.

Number two, this is free or just about the cost of a greeting card. A nice card for the teacher. If you want this to be completely free. You could make some art or have your child drop picture and then write a nice note in it. You could also write a really kind email.

If you wanna write an email, you could always CC the principal on it and let that compliment go a little bit further. It always feels nice to know that your boss is hearing about the good things that you're doing in the school.

I have to say, whenever I walk through the card aisle at a store, I will see cards dedicated to teachers, and I did not receive a lot of these in my career. Now sure, I got a lot of really nice cards, but the ones that are actually for teachers, I think people forget that they exist. If you have a couple extra bucks and you wanna buy a nice greeting cards, there's usually really cute ones in stock. The ones that I've been showing on the screen are from my local target, and they had quite a selection of teacher cards.

If you feel like you want to give something a little extra with that card, you could always add an apple or a nice piece of candy with this.

One time I had somebody give me a card and an apple, then they tie just a really cute ribbon around the stem of the apple. I know that it seems random, but it's actually a. Symbol of teaching and it's a really sweet thing to receive an apple.

Idea number three. This is one that is also free, but it will cost you your time volunteering in the classroom. You reach out to them before Valentine's day or on Valentine's day, it doesn't matter here. And let them know that you want to give back some of their time. Ask them, is there something you need to be done that's getting put off? Offer to make all of their copies for the next week. Change out a bulletin board or organize their class library.

I guarantee you the teacher has something. And if they don't, they might know somebody else in the school that could use the volunteer hours. What's nice about this is you don't have to schedule it to happen on Valentine's Day. If you're running in the last minute here, like it's February 13th at four P.M.,

why don't you go ahead and just send that email out then you can schedule something two weeks from now when you have more time to come in. back on our budget gifts. Gift number four is really nice pens. Now you might already know if your teacher has a preferred type of pen or marker that they work with, the classic teacher ones, of course, are flair pens. I own so many flair pens and actually these are not all of my flair pens. My tutoring bag has a whole nother set. they, uh, they just write the best they are kind of expensive, but you can get small packs of two or four that will be under $10.

I've got some Amazon links below. If you wanna just go ahead and buy these now.

If you don't wanna get them flare pens or you can't find those in time, Sharpies and fun colors are great. I actually had a parent buy me this set of Sharpies. I gosh, there's gotta be over 20 in here, um, years ago. And they came in so handy. Teachers often use Sharpies for labeling or for making posters, and so to have them in a wide variety of colors is really nice.

There's another type of marker you may not have heard of, and that's called a chart paper marker. Chart paper markers are really nice because they don't bleed like a sharpie, but they can write large letters. They're really great for making anchor charts and posters in class.

Now, I don't usually suggest getting school supplies for gifts, but the reason why I suggest this is that you know that the teacher's not really gonna be sharing these with the class. They're not a traditional school supply. this is something a little upscale. An upgrade teacher could easily be using a pen, but you tell them, Hey, I know you write a lot. Why not give you the ultimate writing experience?

Okay, and gift number five, gift card. When in doubt, give a gift card, $5 to Dunkin Donuts, or a local coffee shop. $10 to target even the grocery store. If they're like a science teacher, you could do $10 to home. Depot. Lowe's gift cards are great because they're easy to store until it's time to use them. And teachers receive a lot of gift cards. This is going to be your crowd of people that are actually accustomed to them, and you can be pretty sure that they're actually going to use it.

and I've got one bonus gift idea from a newsletter subscriber.

This newsletter subscriber is a teacher. They said a few years ago they received an orchid as a gift and it had a note that said, my love keeps growing for you. Mm, love that. All right, so those are the good gifts.

Let's talk about bad gift number one.

Surprising the whole class with a big sugary treat on Valentine's Day. That is not a gift for the teacher. That is extra work for the teacher. On Valentine's Day, the teacher is not ready for surprises. They are the one orchestrating the surprises and orchestrating the fun. They don't need anything else coming their way.

Believe me, there's already gonna be one kid that tries to kiss another kid they're gonna be dealing with that. Something different is happening with the kid's routine.

It's already going to be hectic in there. Plus, because it is a holiday, there's probably already a parent who asked to bring something in and arrange this a few weeks before the party. You're probably putting the teacher in a position where now they've got two sets of cupcakes to give out.

So instead of bringing something for the whole class, why don't you treat the teacher to a nice treat from a bakery, a bar of chocolate, a nice cup of coffee, just something a little elevated that says Hey, we care about you.

Bad gift number two, I asked for feedback on my Instagram what I heard from a lot of teachers was heavily scented lotions, body washes, or colognes. Even though everyone has their own personal scent of lotions and body washes that they like to use, the thing is scents are very personal.

So if you are giving out a scented lotion, there is a good chance that it's going to be re-gifted. Instead of doing that, I would spend your time and energy on a really nice card or ask them, is there a specific scent that they like? For example, when I was teaching, if somebody asked me that, I would've either said, please don't do it.

Or if they were really pushing me, I would've said pick something that's named after a food. I have a better shot of liking something that's called Apple than I do walk in Paris

Now I wanna hear from you, have you heard of some great Valentine's Day gifts? Do you think you know what you're gonna get? Let me know in the comments below.

I love making these gift guides, so if you've got an idea for another one, drop that in the comments below too. Thanks for watching Primary Focus. My name's Natalie. I'll see you next time.

I've got a few more videos I think you should watch. In my other Valentine's Day gift guide, I explain how to treat your child's teacher to lunch. in this video I explain what to do if you're not feeling the Valentine's day Love.

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