Find or Make the Perfect Teacher Gift on Any Budget

1. Handmade Love*Teach*Inspire charm, nickel silver, approximately 1", comes on a 24" ball chain

...because teachers deserve something besides lanyards and i.d. badges.

Price: iheartteachers.org special…$13

Lead time: Order by this Friday (12/13/13) for delivery before the school break

Contact/purchase/instructions

2. PDQ (or other restaurant) Gift Card

...because if you give a teacher a gift card to a store that sells anything  we can buy for our students or families, that’s where the money will go. (Besides, teachers stay at school so late grading, we have to grab dinner out often.)

Price: Gifter’s choice

Lead time: Order any time you’re in the restaurant or online (either select a print option or remember shipping time if ordering online)

Contact/purchase/instructions: Go here to find a PDQ near you. This site claims to sell cards accepted at over 18,000 restaurants around the nation, but I have never tried.

3. Massage Gift Certificate

Source

...because really, teachers are looking for an excuse to take better care of ourselves.

Price: Gifter’s choice (work with other parents to give a more extravagant amount)

Lead time: website, phone call or in person (if mailing a physical card, be sure to leave time for delivery)

Contact/purchase/instructions

4. Box of Teacher Goodies

...because the less time teachers spend searching for paperclips, the more time they can spend making sure kids aren’t texting.

Price: Gifter’s choice

Lead time: As long as necessary to enjoy the process

Contact/purchase/instructions

5. Personalized Hand Sanitizer Dispenser

...because…well, you probably don’t want to know.

Price: Gifter’s choice

Lead time: As long as necessary to enjoy the process

Contact/purchase/instructions (The blogger includes a free design template!) 

6. DIY Monogram Mugs

...because as long as students need an education, teachers will need caffeinated beverages.

Price: Gifter’s choice (article has great tips on scoring low cost materials)

Lead time: As long as necessary to enjoy the process

Contact/purchase/instructions

7. DIY Mousepad

...because sometimes teachers’ stuff goes missing over the break.

Price: Gifter’s choice

Lead time: As long as necessary to enjoy the process

Contact/purchase/instructions

Want more? Check out the Buzzfeed article. It has 38 more awesome DIY gift ideas.

Day 4 (Dec. 4)

Those of you who know me (or have read any of my posts...ever) know that I love a good pun.

Advent literally means the coming or arrival, and it is also refers to the liturgical period before Christmas--the period that began on December 1st.

Accordingly, it only makes sense that I would align the calendar of our arrival with the colors and symbols of the liturgical period. This is not a sign of irreverence, simply a large, layered, nuanced pun.

More to come...

December 3

29 days and counting! Are you excited? We are!

Thank you so much for checking in on us. A couple little secrets for you... we will be doing some GIVEAWAYS through these posts as well as sneak peeks and other sundry shares. ;-)

The more interaction we get, the more we will give away! Keep coming back. :-)

Random share... Every year the Mattiaccis attempt to do something crafty. This year it was hot glue snowflakes. This is what the kitchen table craft workshop looks like (still). Don't be too impressed yet. They haven't figured out how to get the snowflakes off the wax paper yet.

December 2

30 days and counting!

Sneak peek: we will have a section called "My Public School Education" where successful graduates of the public schooling system reflect on their formative education's impact on their accomplishments.

We are no Pangloss declaring this the "best of all possible worlds". Teachers suffer a lot for our art, and we do it out of love for our students and hope for their future. While our failures haunt us long after the students are gone, our successes rarely return to let us know that we had an impact.

This segment is meant to bring teachers hope, a name, a face, a story to hold onto during our all-nighters, state-mandated professional development, and arduous evaluation cycles.

We'll start by "spilling the T" (we dare you to say it without smiling--we can't) with Jorge Alvarado, creative director, host, producer, red-carpet regular, and all-around awesome guy.

He's used to dealing with celebrities, but our most popular blog shows four ways teachers are just like celebrities, only better. ;-)

Most Popular Blog

December 1

Welcome to our launch countdown calendar! I cannot believe we are only one month away. :-O

I was taking a little downtime with the hubs and scoping the scene at our local mall when I came across the sort of thing I cannot say no to... an awesome BOOK!

The book is called Think Happy, Be Happy: art, inspiration, joy and is published by Workman Publishing. The book follows through on all three promises: art by over thirty artists, nearly 200 inspirational quotes, and fun facts that cause smiles over and over.

This is exactly how we want you to feel when you visit iheartteachers.org, come to our events, or interact with us through social media, so we used select pages from the book for our countdown calendar.

Each day, a new calendar day will open. You can't peek or move ahead because the calendar day will not link ahead of time. ;-) When the day opens, it will link to a little something about the Site: a sneak peek of upcoming content, something about the Site, pictures of us hard at work to launch, something authentic from us to you to thank you for joining the movement.

You can learn more about what we mean when we say "join the movement" through our home page or Vision and Mission statements. Still have questions? You can write them in the comments below or contact us.

Are you excited? Wondering how you could possibly help? Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter and Pinterest. Join our g+ circle (find us at iheartteachersorg@gmail.com). Share our posts, retweet us, +1 us, let us and the world know just how awesome you think we are. Join the movement!

Buy the Book
(We paid full price for the book and were neither asked nor paid to review it. We linked to Inkwood Books because they are our favorite Indie bookstore. Again, while we are open to and seeking sponsorship, no part of this calendar, post, Site, or blog has been sponsored or paid for in any way by any outside source.)