By Cherie Werner
Christmas is coming! Do you want to do something special yet inexpensive for the children you work with each week? Here are more than a dozen teacher-approved and parent-approved gift ideas.
Group gifts:
- Have a bowling or roller-skating outing. To help with the cost, have each child bring $5 in lieu of bringing gifts for each other.
- Eat pizza and watch a movie in your classroom. Take a class vote to determine which movie you’ll watch.
Places to look for bulk gifts:
- Any dollar store
- Hobby Lobby
- Target’s “dollar section”
- ctainc.com
Ideas for young children:
- Activity books & Christmas books
- Christmas cups filled with candy, pencils, stickers, or other small gifts
- Crayons and paints
- Crazy straws
- Homemade play dough—or give them the dry ingredients to make their own play dough
- Homemade crayons: melt old crayons in muffin tins and give these large multi-colored crayons to the children along with a notebook or coloring book
- Print, laminate, and magnetize some fun patterns from scrappindoodles.com to encourage hands-on play.
Ideas for older children:
- Books
- Mad Libs
- Classroom coupons
- Christmas mug with a package of hot cocoa and a candy cane inside
Ideas for children of any age:
- Socks
- Fleece blankets
- Christmas ornaments
- Special pencils or pens
- Art paper and markers
One more idea . . . host a birthday party for Jesus!
Plan a party with games, prizes, and birthday cake. Ask children to bring a baby gift to donate to a hospital or homeless shelter.
The external links included in this article are provided for informational purposes only. CTA makes every effort to ensure the information included in these links is accurate and relevant; however, CTA cannot guarantee the content, nor does CTA endorse any of the products or services offered on the external sites.
You are welcome to copy this article for one-time use when you include this credit line and receive no monetary benefit from it: © 2019 CTA, Inc. Used with permission.
