I usually give them a book as well and often buy them an item of clothing. Something they can wear to their new school - usually a tshirt or similar so around $10. I have always had it seems at least one parent that is leery about pictures being shared so stopped even stressing on that on but do take a couple towards the end of the child's time I can give them - sort of a last day kind of thing.

What I did for a child that left in June and it went over really well is I found a set of people called Super Topplers by Roylco - basically little people in 5 colours. I made some green playdough and let the older kids play with the dough and a few of the people. We talked about all of the kids that were going to be at the school and making new friends. We pretended to walk the kids to school (green playdough was the play yard). The new "friends" talked to each other and they really enjoyed them. Then I put the dough in a container with a note and the box of people (the ones we played with in a small snack bag and the rest in the box - it is a box of 100 people. Added a bow and sent it home with the child.

http://childcare.scholarschoice.ca/d...-topplers.html