Gifting is my love language and so I just LOVE giving holiday gifts to my sweet third graders. The only problem? It can get pricey pretty quick. I want to share a few simple gift ideas that won’t break the bank or require any Martha Stewart type crafting.
1. Books
I absolutely adore giving my students a special book before saying goodbye for winter break. I enjoy writing sweet notes in the front of each book and I imagine them treasuring the book for life. Or at least until they get those fancy electronics from Santa! Don’t run off to Barnes and Noble to buy these books. I love that place, but it would cost way to much to buy 24 chapter books for my students. Buy from Scholastic! Find the $1 books or a set of books that work for your grade level. This year I am buying each of my students a copy of Winter According to Humphrey. I LOVE this book!
This year, each of my kids will be getting the same book. (We just love Humphrey!) Most of the time though, I buy a variety of books and hold a book auction!
Students are able to get the book that they are most interested in. They love it and it is a fun activity for the day before break! After the auction, I have them play math games while I walk around the room putting notes on the inside covers. You can read more about how I organize and run my book auctions HERE.
2. I Spy Holiday Ornaments
I Spy is pretty addicting- no matter your age. I made these fun ornaments for my students and they could NOT stop looking for items that their friends did not have!
I bought all of the supplies at Hobby Lobby (but I am sure you could find them at Michael’s or other craft stores) and they ended up costing about $1 per ornament.
All you do is pour the fake snow into the clear bulbs. Add the tiny little holiday shapes. I found them with the scrapbooking supplies. You can get creative with this! You could use holiday shapes sequins, mini bells, small pom poms or a tiny button.
Then hot glue the top onto the ornament. Add the tag and some ribbon. Viola! Would you like the tag I used? You can download it for FREE by clicking HERE.
3. Math Card Game
I have no problem being that sneaky teacher who sends home educational holiday gifts! <Insert evil cackle laugh> My students love to play math games in the classroom. So why not send home a simple math game that they can play with their family?
I bought the cards at the dollar store. I got two decks for a dollar which made this an extremely inexpensive gift. I used some glue dots to attach the deck of cards to the direction card. I made a card for Addition War and a card for Multiplication War. You can grab the direction cards for FREE by clicking HERE.
5. Craft Kits
My students love to get crafty so I was very excited to find some cute craft kits at Michael’s! The kits only cost $1 and if you had a coupon, you could get them even cheaper!
They had these cute cross stitch kits that I just know my third graders would enjoy.
And these bead kits that would also be a huge hit.
6. Play-doh Cards
Kids love Play-doh. My own kids (ages 9-11) all love to make fun new creations with Play-doh. You can buy bags of the tiny size Play-doh containers in the party aisle at Wal-Mart. They will run you about $4 for 12. Now you just need to make them a bit cuter…
I found this adorable Play-doh card on the blog Repeat Crafter Me.
Click HERE to download her FREE template and see her step-by-step directions for assembly.
I hope that this gave you some inspiration for your own class gifts! Happy gifting!
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Love the ISpy ornaments! What an adorable idea!
I love the Christmas ornament. So simple even I can do it. One question, how many hidden items did you put in each ornament?
Hi Dana,
You may have to experiment with the number of objects you put in each ornament depending on what you use. You don’t want to put too many inside so they can’t hide and you don’t want to put too few in where they can’t be found. I hope you students enjoy the hunt!
Love ALL your ides. I do books, pencil, a holiday book mark from Walmart. I might see about the cards though. Love!
I love the addition war idea with a deck of cards!!! Added bonus is the kids will be practicing their math facts. Thanks for all you do!
I love the math war cards — what a great idea! Have you considered making one that’s more winter theme? I found super cute snowflake playing cards on Oriental Trading and would totally love to have the math war cards match. 🙂
Hi Heather,
I bet those snowflake playing cards are cute! I’m sorry, I do not have plans to create the math war directions using a different theme. Thank you for the suggestion for possible future revisions.