Teacher Appreciation Week: Gift Ideas + Free Printables

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2-6) to all my teacher peeps! Whether you choose to believe it or not, teachers are so undervalued, underpaid, and overworked. But most of them teach anyway because it’s their calling. They impart more than just knowledge and grammar and history lessons. They want to teach their kids to be good people, accepting of others, to care for the community and world they live in.

And we all have that one teacher we’ll never forget. I hope in most cases it’s because they impacted you in some positive and influential way and not some terribly mean teacher that made you cry in front of the whole class. For me it was Mr. Schwarz, my high school English teacher. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but it wasn’t until I met him that I knew I wanted to teach high school English as well.

At the time that I was taking his class, I was going through some difficult times at home with my dad having cancer. I used that class to channel all my emotions into the daily writing assignments we had. At the beginning of every class Mr. Schwarz had a journal question on the board and we spent the first five minutes of class writing our responses to his questions.

One day the question was: “If you could win tickets to any sporting event, what would it be and why?” I am not a huge sports fanatic but I immediately knew my answer and wrote about how my dad was a huge Bears fan and how much it would mean to me to win tickets to see a Bears/Packers game with my dad.

The following week, Mr. Schwarz passed back our journal writings and on mine he wrote: “I occasionally get Bears tickets and the next time I get some, they’re yours.” I was shocked and then a few days later, he handed me an envelope with 2 Bears tickets.

You see, Mr. Schwarz was also the basketball coach and spoke to all his players and told them my story, so he asked them to go home and see if anyone in their family had access to Bears tickets. Well, his team did not disappoint and that’s how he was able to get tickets for me. He told me that the tickets weren’t just from him, but the whole team. That was, and still is, one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

It’s teachers like Mr. Schwarz that deserve to be celebrated during Teacher Appreciation Week. Teachers don’t do this job for the money or the gifts (because there’s not much of either), they do it for the kids. So I encourage you to find a way this week to show your appreciation to your children’s teachers. It could be a simple handmade card from you or your kids just to say you appreciate all that they do. If you’re in need of some easy teacher appreciation gift ideas that won’t break the bank, here are two ideas and also free printable gift tags to go with.

I don’t know any teachers that don’t like donuts and every teacher could always use more writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, dry erase markers, chalk, highlighters). So pick up either one of those, print off the cute gift tag, and you’re all set!

Download your free “Donut” printable here

Download your free “MARK” printable here

So who was your favorite teacher and why? How did they impact your life? Share your story below!

Thanks for reading and for more baby, mama, food, style, and fun stuff, subscribe to the blog and follow along on Insta @myplotofsunshine 🙂

XO,

L