Daily 5 Gift Bags
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A few years ago as winter vacation drew near, I found myself repeating the same motions I go through every year. I planned our holiday party at school, organized crafts to make, and began to look for gifts to give my students. Fortunately I knew exactly what they wanted, because they shared their wish lists with me frequently. Unfortunately I didn’t win the lottery, so I wasn’t going to purchase a gift for each student from his or her wish list. Sound familiar? Instead, I decided to give each student a book from the book order, which is always a great idea because it puts a new book in their hands without breaking my pocketbook.
One thing led to another and I didn’t place my book order in time, so I was left wondering what to do. Then one day, during share time of Daily 5, a little girl in my class asked me if she could have one of my dry-erase boards so she could practice at home. What a great idea! I knew right then what I was going to do for each child. Teachers are always innovative when it comes to finding inexpensive ways to teach and learn. My children love working with words, and they like to use dry-erase boards, Play-Doh, stencils, markers, and more. So why not make these available for them to use at home?
That year my holiday gift to my students was a Daily 5 gift bag, and the total cost to make twenty-four of them was only twenty-eight dollars. Then, as an added personal touch, I called my mom and told her what I had done. Mom has a knack for writing cute little rhymes, and she wrote a rhyme that I could staple to each bag. The best part was the look on my students’ faces when I gave their gift bags to them. You would have thought I had given them each a top item from their wish list. It was priceless!
Here is what I included in their bags: stencils, a dry-erase marker, three colored markers, a small tablet of paper, a small tub of Play-Doh, a pencil, and a plastic plate (works great as a dry-erase board). To save costs, you could shop at your nearest dollar store and make your own play dough. The poem is good for any occasion—holiday, spring break, or end of the year.
