Do you buy your child’s teacher a Christmas gift?

I have always struggle with teacher’s gifts and what to do. I asked a teacher friend and she said she doesn’t expect anything at Christmas, but offered a number of suggestions on what to give, including as a FYI, stuff for the classroom as most teachers have to pay for those supplies out of pocket and, at least in Canada, can’t write it off on their taxes, which I think is terrible.

I usually send a homemade gift to my son’s teacher at Christmas and I am usually stuck for ideas, but not this year thanks to DK Books Crafty Gifts by Jane Bull ($16.99).

The book is divided into three sections – craft gift ideas, which includes everything from cookies in a jar to bath bombs; craft cards, including the pop-up variety; and craft gift wrap, including pillow boxes using toilet paper rolls (love it) and making a box.

I love the suggestions for decorating brown paper packages (makes me sing the song from the The Sound of Music each time) and creating boxes out of cheap paper plates. I love decorating mugs – and egg cups – and the ideas for each including the dotted mug, and the variety of jar of goodies including the sewing one.

DK Books the slime book offers 30 recipes for slime including gold slime, poppy slime, swamp slime and more.
DK Books the slime book

For those teachers (and there are three this year) with children, I could also also make one of more than 30 varieties of slime and stick it in one of those jars or, conversely put all the ingredients one needs to make slime in one of those jar of goodies (DK Books the slime book, $12.99).

This book creates a lot of slime using a saline solution, which contains boric acid and sodium borate, which, scarily enough, is found in contact lense solution. (I looked that up. That is rather frightening to me.) My son, personally, is excited to try popping slime (with pop candy inside), gold slime and bubbling swamp slim, which uses xanthan gum.

So what do you give for teacher’s gifts?

A copy of these books were provided by DK Books for an honest review. The opinions are my own.