Christmas Gift Ideas for your Students

Let me start by saying that you do NOT have to get your students a Christmas gift. You go out of your way to create meaningful experiences for them every day. That is enough.

But sometimes we really want to send our babies home with a little something. A couple dozen gifts is tough to do on a teacher salary. Even going to the dollar store and getting cheap goodies gets expensive and most of the junk will break or get lost within a day or two.

I put together a list of fun, but inexpensive, gifts that I think your students will find meaningful.

1. Book

Books are hands-down my favorite gift to give my students for any holiday! Scholastic dollar books make it a very economical gift. Plus, you can use your bonus points to order books that are higher priced. Check out THIS post to learn more about getting the most out of your Scholastic book order.

You can just write a note on the front cover, wrap them up and give them to students.

Or…. have a book raffle!!! Seriously, book raffles are a blast! It’s a great activity the day before break and it ends with everyone getting a book that they love! Click HERE to learn more about having a book raffle.

PSST…you can even do this with your students who don’t celebrate the holidays!

2. Class Gift

I think that a class gift is a genius idea! Instead of spending a lot on trinkets that will probably get thrown away, broken or lost- how about getting something for the classroom?

You could get playground equipment, board games, STEM materials or flexible, seating options.

Gifts like this will be used over and over again year after year. They are not gifts that will be tossed aside and forgotten.

3. Personalized Ornament

Putting the ornaments on the tree is such a fun family tradition in my house. We all share memories from past vacations or special celebrations that are captured in the ornaments.

What if your students could remember you and your classroom family every year when they put up their tree?

These ornaments are very inexpensive and you can personalize them with a Sharpie, a paint marker or using vinyl and a die cut machine.

4. Scented Pencils

I love smelly school supplies and so did my kiddos!

THESE scented pencils are so fun! Writing workshop will be 10x more fun when their writing smells like blueberries! ?

5. Math Game and Cards

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.

6. Class Picture

I am all about sentimental gifts. I think they are the most meaningful. And there is nothing more sentimental than a framed photo.

This gift idea is very inexpensive.

Have someone click a photo of you with your class. Have them printed and put them in dollar store picture frames. I grabbed this pretty one from Ikea.

Simple and sweet!