Stain Glass Coloring Books
Jim Weiss CD's - King Arthur, Shakespeare, and Famously Funny tales
Madlibs - regular for Sierra, junior for Kali
Dot to Dot Book for Arwen
a Calendar for each
Battleship
Labyrinth
Stomp Rocket
So far so good. A little bit educational, a little bit fun. Here, I start leaning more towards educational:
Ant farm
Zeus on the Loose
Snap Circuit Set
Then I fully go off the deep end with these, but I actually think they might like them, at least the art cards...
Composers Cards
Scientist Cards
Renaissance Art Cards
I also like to wrap up some art supplies that I would replenish anyway, so we can have more presents under the tree.
Markers
Fuse Beads
Nuudles
Playdough
Then I went to an Usborne Party and decided to save the cool stuff I got for Christmas presents.
an Origami Kit for Sierra
and Fairy Things to Make and Do Kid Kit for Kali
I didn't find anything for Arwen, so I went to Michael's and got her Spin Art ( with the 40% off coupon, of course)
Then I hosted an Usborne Book Party and the girls, especially Sierra, fell in love with some books, so I used my hostess credit to get:
The Princess Treasury
Fairy Things to Make and Sew
How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids
See Inside Fairyland
Art Skills
Since most of these are for Sierra, I got Arwen a Seek and Find Book and Kali a book from the easy chapter book fairy series, Holly the Christmas Fairy
I am still a gift short for Arwen. She's 5 she may not notice, right? I grew up in a family of 2 kids, so everything was always pretty even. Does everyone try to even out the number of gift or a I just weird?
OK, have you noticed that there are no toys so far? The thing is, we have too many toys already and sometimes it seems like we have every toy in the girl's section of the toy store ( except Barbie, Bratz, and toys that make noise, which are all banned) But every year the girls are allowed to pick one thing that they definitely want Santa to bring them for Christmas - within reason - the girls have be informed that parents have veto right when it comes to what gift he will bring. So this year the girls picked:
Sweet Secrets Slumber Party - Sierra
Sweet Secrets Mall - Kali
Only Hearts Club Doll - Arwen
Now, some of my hippy homeschool friends have been giving me crap about the Sweet Secret Dolls. My girls have a few already since the dolls by themselves are only $4 and since they only get a $1 a week allowance after a month of savings they are chomping at the bit to buy something. Anyway, my friends have accused the dolls of being a bit trampy and they are a bit scantily clad, but they are tiny, so their boobs are the size of a pinhead and their clothes are painted on so you will never find them lying around naked, ala barbie, with their teeny tiny boobies hanging out...
Anyway, that's about it. One last cool idea I got this year. I recently ordered a bunch of books from the Read It Again Books Yahoo group. Since I didn't pick out any of the books for any girl in particular, I decided to just lay them all out on the coffee table with a note from Santa telling the girls that he know how much they love reading and hopes they enjoy these books. Here are the books I got ( from the yahoo group and also a few from my Usborne hostess credit):
All of a Kind Family
The Borrowers
Half Magic
Caddie Woodlawn
Catherine Called Birdy
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
A Giraffe and a Half
Poetry for young People Emily Dickinson
Phoebe the Spy
How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?
A Tree is Nice
Have You Seen My Duckling?
Twenty One Balloons
The Door in the Wall
Adam of the Road
The Usborne Book of Art
Usborne Story of Music
See Inside My Body
What's your favorite gift idea for a homeschooler?
1 comment:
What a great list! I'm like you, always calibrating that balance between "fun" and "educational" -- though of course we love gifts that are both.
As far as what I like to give -- I sell Usborne Books, so we tend to give a LOT of those. We also love things out of the Dover Books catalog: paper dolls are a favorite with both my girls (ages 4 and 14 -- the 14-year-old loves the "history of fashion"-type paper dolls by Tom Tierney). Last year we gave both our younger kids (4 and 3 at the time) paper theatres from Dover -- our son got the Peter Pan theatre, and our daughter got Beatrix Potter. I didn't go to the length of actually making the cut-out-fold-glue theatres, but I put the backdrops in page protectors in a binder for each child and cut out all the little characters. They still play with these, and they cost us $9 each. A great gift. We love Dover! (and homeschoolers are eligible for their educators' discount, and you get free shipping with orders over $50 -- families can go in together, because it's hard to spend $50, with everything so inexpensive).
Thanks for posting your list! Gotta go think about mine . . .
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