COVID-19 Teacher Gift Basket: Help Keep the Classroom Clean!

Looking for a practical gift for your child’s teacher this year? This COVID-19 teacher gift basket fits the bill!

Pin it for later! ⤵️

Earlier this school year, I asked my fellow room moms what their teachers were asking for on their Classroom Wish Lists. An overwhelming number of teachers are requesting cleaning/sanitizing supplies to keep their classrooms healthy and safe.

If your children are back to in-person learning, the germ struggle for teachers is REAL! Schools have strict budgets, and each teacher is given a limited amount of disinfectants, hand sanitizers, and other anti-coronavirus supplies.

This Lysol-filled gift basket is likely the most useful COVID-19 teacher gift idea for our teachers right now!

Collecting Money from Parents

If you’d like to make this a class gift, you can send a simple letter to all the other parents asking for donations. It’s easy to collect money using Venmo and/or PayPal (I actually use both!).

I love to include all the parents in teacher gifts because I can always get WAY more than I would be able to afford on my own. Plus, the parents are always thrilled to be able to contribute to a larger gift from the class.

If you’re not sure how to collect money from parents, check out this post. It will walk you through exactly how I do it!

How to Make the COVID-19 Teacher Gift Basket

First, you’ll want to gather all the items to fill the gift basket BEFORE you buy a basket or box to contain them. (I actually purchased a cute farmhouse bin for this project, but it ended up being way too small!)

You can include a variety of cleaning and sanitizing supplies in your gift basket. Teachers most commonly requested the following items:

• Wipes, lots of wipes!
• Lysol or any disinfectant spray
• Hand sanitizer
• Disposable face masks (perfect back up for teachers and kids who forgot their mask, or, heaven forbid, sneeze in their cloth mask and need a fresh face covering!!)
• Gloves for cleaning

Where to Find Supplies for Your Gift Basket

We all know how difficult it can be to find some of these supplies lately…

Thankfully, I was able to find most of the name brand items at my local Walgreens. Though, I think off-brand products work just fine too. (There’s an off-brand bottle of hand sanitizer in my gift basket if you look closely!)

I also decided to include a bottle of hand lotion. I know my hands get super dry from all the hand sanitizer, so this was a no-brainer. Any hand lotion with a pump works great and can be placed on the teacher’s desk for easy, hand-soothing access.

Next, fill your basket or box with all the items you collected. I used plain tissue paper to line the inside of the box. Creative, I know.

Crumpled issue paper helps to create a soft base at the bottom of your basket or box. You will then be able to squish the items into the tissue paper to make a cute display. I actually used a box of gloves at the bottom of my box to give some of the shorter items a little height.

Once you’re happy with your basket, you can wrap it with clear cellophane to keep everything inside, kinda like this fruit basket:

Top the basket with a bow and you’re ready to send it off to your child’s teacher!

When to Send The Teacher Gift Basket

This gift basket is a great teacher gift for Christmas, Teacher Appreciation Week, or can be sent as a “just because” gift anytime throughout the school year.

As a room parent, I love spoiling my daughter’s teachers with the supplies they need. This pandemic has taught us how important it is to work together to support our teachers. They give so much of themselves to help our kids learn even during all of this!

I hope this post gave you some inspiration to create a COVID-19 teacher gift that she will find useful this school year. I’d love to hear what kind of supplies you were able to find in the comments!

Amy