Happy (almost) holidays from our team at School Literacy & Culture! Here at SLC we have been preparing our gift guide a bit earlier than usual, as many are shopping early for various reasons this year. We hope publishing our annual gift guide at the beginning of November this year will give you the chance to purchase your gifts early, then rest easy knowing you’re all set for the holiday season ahead! And, really, isn’t the idea of having our holiday shopping completed early pretty attractive? No late night trips to the store or rushed evenings wrapping gifts; you can have it all done before the celebrations begin. This as an idea we can get behind!
This year we’ve chosen to center our gift guide around a mix of options that can grow with children and gifts that are consumable, meaning a child can use them several times but they won’t need a permanent place in your play room for years on end. And, almost all of the items on our list have various uses. Our aim this year is to supply you with a list of options to choose from that will get played with again and again (No more gifts that are used once and relegated to a dusty toy corner!), and gifts that are sturdy enough to hold up to use for multiple years and multiple children. For the first time, we are also including an “Experiences” gift section, because many of the best memories with children are created when exploring new spaces together.
Read on for our suggestions this holiday season. We wish you a cozy, peaceful, and joy-filled holiday season with those you love most. And please remember, there is no greater gift we can give our children than our time, so soak up the precious moments you have with the little ones in your life!
Blocks & Building Gifts
High-quality, durable blocks are timeless gifts that children will use for years and years, but are also fantastic heirloom pieces as many of these sets last so well they can be handed down generation to generation. Blocks foster creative, imaginative play which serves all young children and their development well!
Creative Play Gifts
These creative play items are mostly consumable, so children will get many uses out of them but they won’t all last forever! These pieces are great to pair together (like the water beads and the tweezer and scooper set) or with other items on our list (like pairing the Curious Chef set with the cookbook on our list below), and play is enhanced when you or another adult in the child’s life joins in the experience. These gifts also foster the development of fine motor skills in young children, which is critical for their development. The Curious Chef set is most definitely a gift that needs to be used with an adult, but will provide hours of fun working in the kitchen together with a little one.
Molding and Modeling:
Painting:
Sensory Play:
Outdoor Play Gifts
Outdoor play has always been important for young children, but we have found the benefits of time outdoors to be even more significant amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic. We have included a few fun finds that can be enjoyed in one’s own backyard or driveway, or in a wide open green space!
STEM Gifts
Caring for living, growing things is an excellent experience in not only biology but responsibility for young children. If you have a budding young ecologist in your family or friend set, any of these STEM and living things sets would be great presents this holiday season!
Subscription Gifts
Monthly subscriptions are a fantastic way to keep the gift giving going all year long! Below are a few of our favorite magazines and monthly experiences for young children. All arrive in your mailbox or at your front door step – it couldn’t be any easier! The anticipation young children feel waiting for their next magazine or box to arrive is really precious and will provide loads of fun and entertainment upon delivery.
Experience Gifts
For the first time, we have added a few gift experience suggestions to our gift guide. Children could have all the toys in the world, but what is most important to a young child is quality time spent with those who love them. Two of our suggestions below are annual memberships that can be used over and over throughout the year, and two are experiences that are free of cost. These experiences are Houston and Texas specific, but adjustments can easily be made suit your location! All of these experience gifts would be lovely paired with a book on our list below and a little note explaining the outing.
- Zoo Membership
- State Park Pass
- Day Trip to the Arboretum
- Day Trip to Galveston Area Beach
Book Gifts
This year, rather than focus on newly published texts, we have chosen to feature books that can be paired nicely with other suggested items on our gift guide, or given on their own. Read on for pairing suggestions and great book titles that the young children in your life will surely enjoy!
- Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, by Kate Messner (pair with a living things STEM kit)
- What if You Had... Book Seris, by Sandra Markle (pair with a Houston Zoo membership)
- Tree, by Britta Teckentrup (pair with trip to the Houston Arboretum)
- Hello, Ocean, Hola Mar, by Pam Munoz Ryan (pair with a day trip to the beach)
- Someone Builds the Dream, by Lisa Wheeler and Loren Long (pair with a set of blocks)
- All Aboard the Midnight Train, by Kristyn Crow (pair with Brio train tracks)
- My First Cookbook, by America’s Test Kitchen (pair with Curious Kids cooking set)
The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies and School Literacy & Culture wishes you and yours a joyous, peaceful holiday season and a very happy new year!