ideas for homemade teacher's present

[mumzy]

Hi DS has had a really fab teacher this year and he's really keen to make her a present at the end of term. Has anyone any ideas for homemade presents which go down well and can be done by a 5 year old with some help from mum in the next 3 weeks?

My DD drew pictures of her nursery teachers which I then took photos of. I then uploaded them to this link and we designed them a mug. I thought this would be good if they didn't want to take them home as they could leave them in nusery/ school. DD chose the colours/ wording to go along the bottom, eg, I love X as she is so kind etc, etc. They were a massive hit and still felt home-made and weren't too expensive.

Just a thought. As a teacher I would have loved to get something like that but other best presents I received were wine and homemade cards/ bookmarks.

Other ideas for Christmas were we made 'make your own mulled wine' and 'little jars of love' where we wrote down memories of that teacher and put it in a decorated jam jar for them to take out when they were feeling low. Naff but cute.

the best present I ever got as a teacher was from one of my year two boys who spoke little English when he came into my class, and by the end of the school year everyone said he had a Canadian accent! (I am Canadian!)
Anyway, it was a very underprivileged area of London, and families had little to no money for extra things besides the neccessary...and this little boy stood up at the front of the class, gave me a pile of pieces of paper that had been stapled together and he had written his own story book and illustrated it. Not all of it was in English, but when he gave it to me he said "My Mum does not have any money so I made you this, but it is not as nice as the other presents" It brought tears to my eyes, and I told him it was one of the greatest presents because I knew how much effort he had put into it.

I personally would much rather have something made by one of the kids than something bought, as one can only get so many boxes of chocolate!

The other thing that I have gotten from families that I keep and treasure is a card from parents, where they have commented on how their child has gotten on through the year, and thanking me for all the work put into teaching their child.