Gift for my Supervising Teacher

I'm sure anything you got her would be sincerely appreciated - but to go along with her expressed need for gardening help and your expertise with plants, you could get her a potted gardenia or azalea for her classroom or home right now with a card attached that outlined your idea for helping her replant it outside in the spring.

Has she given you a grade/report/whatever yet? (I can't remember). Not that you would be trying to sway her, but it could be an appearance on impropriety with the wrong timing.

Lil'K,

A friend of mine recently gave me the A to Z Plant Dictionary.

It was very cool, and much appreciated...

RH

Thank you card only, no gift.

I cannot believe you were not paid to supervise the class. Not your supervisors decision I know but still.

Aidan, good idea about the plant!

Osso, she does her final report on my on Tuesday. I'd planned to wait until after that.

Rockhead, that's also a good idea. Plant, book, and hours in the garden?

Dadpad, I didn't supervise the class. It was part of my master's coursework. She supervised me. The thinking goes, I guess, that no one pays me to write lesson plans for my courses. This is akin to that kind of homework. Though if I hadn't been there, someone paid would have been.

Oh funny.

Mo and I were just considering what to do for his teachers for the holiday. They have two big planter boxes outside the classroom filled with dead things. We're thinking of sneaking over and planting the boxes with something lovely (and perinneal).

But I would hesitate to give plants to someone who professes no knowledge of gardening.

Our other idea is to order a batch of honeybees or chicks from heifer.org in their names.

A great book for the classroom might even be nice. Oh gosh..... what's that great book about the seeds?......

Oh -- Frogbelly Ratbone.

I LOVE that book!

Boomer, I like that book. The illustrations remind me of the artwork I got my tattoo from. But, it's a bit young for this classroom. And, she is a A-One reading teacher with a large inclass library. I wouldn't feel worthy of giving her books.

I like the idea about planting the boxes at Mo's school.

You could do an "all of the above" gift. Make up a gardener's gift basket using a small planter box or ceramic pot and put in it some gardening gloves, a trowel, a few packets of seeds and a gift certificate at a nursery and/or gardening handbook. In the card you could thank her for her guidance and enclose an I.O.U. voucher worth an X number of your hours of gardening assistance in the form of mentoring her on her garden and/or pulling weeds.

That sounds good, a gift basket of sorts. Though, speaking for myself, I know I would never claim the gardening voucher if I got one. I wouldn't be comfortable with that...it would feel odd to me to both use it and to not use it... but i tend to overthink things.

I like your gardening idea, k.

The only thing that worries me about it is when you get your first big job, you might find yourself a bit pushed for time to honour it! (I'm being realistic here!)

So my suggestion is a one-off gift. Perhaps of the plant/gardening variety ... like a beautiful pot plant (of the not temperamental variety! :wink: )

Or perhaps something you've cooked or baked yourself (I know you're a ripper cook! ) that she could take home & enjoy! Like home-made short bread, a jar of pesto (if this is to her taste), olives, or .... ?
If you have a good idea of her tastes in food.

Nothing at all wrong with a gift that's a wee bit "personal".

I have some more thinking to do. I do like Butrfly's idea. And I also see that MsO has a good point I hadn't thought of.

Ahhhh, I didn't mean to be a stick in the mud with my appearance of impropriety comment. I have a friend who very near didn't get out of a four year post graduate schooling because of a gift after giving her thesis presentation but before the final written grade. I presume any written report by your supervisor has already been submitted; but just in case it isn't, a gift can be a bumbling mistake.

Osso, it was a good point. But, I'd already taken it into consideration. After Tuesday, her official job is over.

Ok, I am compiling a garden box gift. I decided against cookies because it'
s xmas time and there'll be plenty of junk to go around. Maybe rum balls would be ok. Don't see them around much. Perhaps I'll do a mentor appreciation gift and a separate xmas gift.

The garden gift bag will include bulbs for forcing and for outside, gloves, trowel, and a basic gardening book. I will mention in the note that I hope to come over and help out if I can. I nixed the seeds idea because they can be tricky and a bit of a let down (in my experience).

This means I have to get dressed........

Great. And I like the Garden Bag thing...

MsO mentioned pesto. My supervisor has a baby who is 13 months old. She was asking my advice about new foods to try. They'd been eating vegie pastes (freshly cooked vegetables, pured and spread on sandwich bread) so I asked about pesto. Add some flavor to that vegie spread. Both baby and mother LOVE the pesto. So, perhaps I could buy a few tubs of the stuff for her. But, then again, this is getting expensive.

Is making a few tubs cheaper? (That's a lot of basil, right? Not quite the right time of year.)

I'm reading for ideas for what to give Sozlet's teacher. Get this, though. Sozlet said at dinner that she knew what her teacher was probably getting her (sozlet) for Christmas. I didn't really pay attention, it seemed like it could be a sozlet flight of fancy. But then she said that her teacher asked each of them -- every kid in the class -- to write in order of preference their three favorite Li'l Kinz. (If I talk about Webkinz a lot it's because I'm surrounded by kids who talk about them a lot -- her whole class and as far as I can tell her whole school just loves 'em.) (That reminds me, I never updated how the party went. Anyway.) So I have to say it really does look like every single kid in the class is going to get a Li'l Kinz from the teacher for Christmas. Yikes!!!

We'll see.

Nice teacher!

Making pesto isn't really cheaper than buying. It might be at this moment because I already have some cheese and pine nuts.

I decided on rum balls and I bought some pfuffernuse cookies. Maybe I'll throw in some Amaretti di Saronno Lazzaroni

(searching for Italian to English for dummies)