Teacher Appreciation Ideas 2024: The Ultimate List from Teachers Themselves! (2024)

Looking for some easy teacher appreciation ideas? Check out my guide of teacher appreciation week ideas, luncheon ideas, cards, and easy teacher appreciation gift ideas!

Teacher Appreciation is coming up. It is a special time of year to show our teachers how much we appreciate all they do.

Many teachers work many more hours than they are paid for, use their own money to purchase class supplies, and have to teach sometimes more than 30 kids at a time.

And if you have a kiddo like mine who makes their child’s teacher job a little harder than it needs to be, then a little show of appreciation can go a long way to a favorite teacher!

In fact, you don’t need to wait for Teacher’s day or Teacher Appreciation Week to give our amazing teachers a little extra love. Some of the easy and inexpensive teacher appreciation ideas below are fun ways to show appreciation and can be used year round.

What is Teacher Appreciation Week?

Teacher appreciation lands on the first full week of May each year.So for 2024, Teacher Appreciation Week is from May 6th to May 10th.This is a national week that gives parents, students, and even school staff and principals the opportunity to recognize the hard work of their teachers.

National Teacher Day is part of the week. It is always on the Tuesday of the first full week of May. This coming year, National Teacher Appreciation Day will be on Tuesday, May 7th, 2024.

Some schools will shower teachers with love and fun gifts all week long and some will do a nice gesture on the National Teacher Appreciation day itself.It’s up to your school and usually the PTA or PTO on how they like to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week.

What do Teachers Want for Teacher Appreciation Week?

When I was a room Mom I used to always search for “what do teachers actually want to receive as an appreciation gift?”.I really wanted to know what teacher gift they would actually use and appreciate.

As I’ve grown older, I know we all collect a lot of items, and I’m sure teachers that have been teaching for over 20 years are bombarded with tons of little nicknacks like mugs and ornaments.

So this year I decided to survey teachers (really a great way to find out for sure!!) from our schools and some of my readers in search of the perfect gift and to find out what teachers really want.The results were kind of surprising, so let me tell you what I learned about the best presents for teachers!

Answering some of the questions were hard for a lot of the teachers because they said they really appreciate everything they get from students and parents. But some things really stood out!

The first question on my survey was, “What gift would you most use?”. Any guesses? This one was actually not that surprising to me.

• 70% said Gift Cards (to where? We’ll get there in a minute!)
• Other answers included: Something handmade by the child/parent, really good paper, tote bag, Crayola brand items, flash drive. So a few things on the list that I hadn’t thought of!

One of the easiest ways to find out exactly what your specific teacher wants is to give them a my favorite things survey to fill out at the beginning of the year. And you are in luck because I have a free printable for you! You can download and print out a teacher favorite things formhere.

What Gift Cards Do Teachers Want?

Let’s talk about some gift card ideas for teachers. My next question on the teacher gift survey was exactly that. “If you prefer gift cards, to where?”Take a look at the best gift cards for teachers.

AMAZON by a landslide!!I actually thought Target would be higher, but you can order anything off Amazon and you don’t have to leave the house! I know I order anything and everything I can off Amazon.

So of course once I learned that I had to make some cute Amazon gift card printable for teachers for you. I have two different ones for you to pick from and you can download them at the bottom of the post.

Teacher Appreciation Cards

Speaking of handwritten notes, that was the main gift that kept coming up as meaning so much to teachers and support staff.I didn’t even give them any drop-down choices to choose from. This question was a free response…

For teacher appreciation week, what would mean the most to you?

Over 50% said some kind of handwritten thoughtful note from students and parents.The best teacher gifts are anything that is homemade and from the heart.

Other responses included: gift cards for pampering or nails, craft store or school supplies, or a lunch provided by the class.

I have a few free Thank You teacher card printables that you can print out and have your child write a little sincere note to his teacher and then you, the parent, can write a note on the other one.

Again when I asked them,

What was a favorite gift you received?

Homemade crafts, personalized gifts, handwritten notes, pictures, class projects, mason jar crafts, and items made by their students topped the list.A lot of them expressed that they have kept all the notes ever written to them over the years!

A few mentioned loving photo books and binders with all the students’ cards or artwork already in them so that they are easier to store as the perfect gift.

A nice bottle of wine and made the list a couple of times as a great gift option! You can always add a personalized wine glass and sweet treat with a bottle.

Personalized Teacher Gifts – What Do They Prefer?

Since I love making personalized gifts, I had to ask which ones they prefer.

Totes and bags are a big hit and there are so many ways you can personalize them.I do think that you can never have too many bags!

I have a tutorial on how you can make a personalized bag with your child’s artwork on it, which would be a great idea!

So what kind of things do Teachers get too much of?

While most teachers said they appreciate anything they get, I asked them the tough question of what they could use less of.All of the “Other” responses were that they appreciate any gifts and you can see that some teachers skipped this question.

So just to put it out there, even though some of these are cute ideas and might be good for new teachers…

What classroom supplies do teachers prefer?

The last thing I asked about was classroom supplies and what they like the most.This one was kind of all over the board depending on what grade they teach and that they need so many different classroom supplies.

For one of the days during Teacher Appreciation Week, we usually have a bring a classroom supply day. The room parent will usually get a list of 5 or so items from the teacher that they are in need of.

Then each student comes in with a box of crayons, or markers, or Sharpies, etc.It makes it easy for the parents!

I wanted to leave you with a few other personalized teacher gift ideas and free teacher printables if you are needing more ideas!

Additional Resources for Teacher Appreciation Ideas

PTOtoday.com is an amazing website that I used to spend a lot of time on when I was teacher appreciation coordinator.They have forums that you can ask questions and information about activities that other schools all do.

Pinterest is another amazing resource and great place to get lost for hours!Click here to check out my large board of all sortsof teacher appreciation ideas!

Make sure to browse through all of my other teacher gift ideas to get even more inspiration.

I hope these ideas get you inspired! It really can be as easy or complicated as you want to make it. A little bit can go a long way when showing teachers how much we appreciate all they do.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!