"We have done boxes of homemade truffles in different flavors," says Barb Watry, mother of two from Mahtomed, Minn. "Another good idea is making layered cookie mixes in jars with a recipe because everybody can use those. We once gave a gift certificate to a garden center to an avid gardener teacher who had lots of plants in her room."

Jan Bronski, grandma to Andria Bronski of West Brooklyn, Ill., recalled how her granddaughter found out her fifth grade teacher collected old lunchboxes. She found a lunchbox at an auction as a special end-of-year gift, says Bronski.

"My son, Adam, picked a really pretty necklace he thought his teacher would like because she doesn't wear jewelry at school, and he thought she could wear it when she went out," says Mechele Burbank of her son who is in the fifth grade in Rochester, N.Y.

"We like to give teachers things they need: gift certificates to the teacher store. A certificate to their favorite restaurant is a good gift if you can find out where they like to go," says Anna Jensen of Bremen, Ind.

"My kids know that I collect frogs," says Holly Yoder, a middle school teacher in Elkhart, Ind. "I have frog clickers, frog bouncy balls, anything with a frog. One year, I had a student who came back to see me bringing a little frog mouse pad." Yoder says that made her visit even more special.

"The neatest thing I got was a scrapbook based on the book by P.K. Hallinan, My Teacher, My Friend," says Linda Huff, a kindergarten teacher in Bremen, Ind. "All year long [the student's parent] had [taken] pictures in the classroom which I thought were for her own child. If the story said we painted, she had a picture of us painting in class. It was just awesome and personalized." Huff keeps the special memento displayed on an end table in her home.

"The most precious gifts are priceless," says Carol Roberts, a preschool teacher in Akron, Ohio. "Some are simple crayon scribblings. Every one means the world to me. I keep everything. I can't think of any one that stands out. It's just nice to be appreciated."

"The best gift that I got was from a high-schooler who wrote me a letter," says Wayne Bose, a fifth grade teacher in Bremen, Ind. "He said he had made a decision to be a math teacher. It's absolutely wonderful when you know you influenced someone like that."

"In 1986, I was a first-year teacher in a low-income school," says Susan Heim, first grade teacher in Beaufort, S.C. "After one particularly bad day, I went out to my car to find a note under the windshield wiper. It was from one of my second grade boys, and it had a crudely-drawn heart with the words, 'You will always be in my heart.' Almost 20 years later, I still have the gift that I remember as being most heartfelt. That child couldn't have bought me a thing, but his gift meant the world to me and it still does."

"I like to receive and give gift certificates to bookstores," says Linda DeVillier, a teacher and a parent at St. Peter's Catholic School in Beaufort, S.C. "With these, teachers can buy what they want for the classroom or something special for themselves to read."

"Honoring Teachers" is the newest initiative of TeachersCount, a national independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to recognizing and rewarding the nation's 3.4 million primary and secondary school teachers.

In the "Honoring Teachers" section of www.TeachersCount.org, visitors can view inspiring stories about teachers, share their own stories, search for stories about a particular teacher or school and e-mail stories to friends. By collecting these stories and making them easily accessible to the public, TeachersCount has created an ever-growing, Web-based monument to the importance of the work that teachers do.

Raising the level of appreciation of teachers in our society is vital to the success of our schools and our children. Teachers have a difficult job and are all too rarely recognized for their hard work. This lack of recognition is one of the many factors that is negatively impacting our already struggling educational system.

"The 'Honoring Teachers' program will help teachers across the nation feel more respected and appreciated," says Diana Burroughs, Ph.D., executive director and co-founder of TeachersCount. "Imagine the impact of a teacher browsing this collection of inspiring stories after a draining day in the classroom or of someone interested in becoming a teacher seeing what a difference he or she can make in the profession."