Educational Gift Ideas to Give Your Homeschool {or Your Kids}

Every year for Christmas, I like to put a gift or two under our Christmas tree for our homeschool. The gifs I choose are ones I wouldn’t otherwise purchase because I’d consider them too impractical, too wasteful, too much of the curriculum budget.  Buying them as Christmas gifts somehow erases all the “too” labels and transforms them into gifts I’m excited to give.

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Any of the magazines from Cricket Media!  Spider and Cricket are beautiful, literary choices. {Ladybug & Babybug are fantastic if you have littles.} Dig & Ask magazines, history & science/curiosity respectively, have been big hits with my boys this year (they are 9 & 7).  And we have ordered several old issues of Cobblestone (history).  They provide well-done free online teacher guides to go along with their magazines. {Under $30}

My daughter loves her GeoPuzzles by GeoToys.  I credit them with my daughter’s ability to identify many countries just by their shape and her basic awareness of where countries are located.  This puzzle would be a nice addition if you are studying the 1800s this year.  It compares the geography of the US in 1810 compared to present day.  The world animal puzzle is also really nice for the younger set. {$15-18 each}

The Scrambled States of America is one of our most played games.  The age on it starts at 8 but my boys have played it (with help) since they were five.

Players flip cards with identifying characteristics of various states (states with three syllables, capital cities that start with S) and then find matching states.  {It’s supposed to be a race but we don’t race since my boys were pre-readers when we purchased it.}  The included storybook is a fun and memorable read, too. {Under $15}

I often buy art supplies during back-to-school sales because, well, they’re cheap.  But I also like to buy supplies that are a little nicer and Christmas is when I do that.  We don’t do a lot of art, though, so I don’t want to spend a lot.  For the money, Prang art supplies have been very good.  We have their watercolors, colored pencils, thin-tipped markers and tempera paint.  The colored pencils seem to last much longer than Crayola and the colors of the paint are very nice.  Art paper by Strathmore and Canson have held up well for us without tearing when wet.  Nice paintbrushes, small canvases, and acrylic paints would also be great additions. {$10 and up}

I won’t go into detail about the Plugable USB Microscope since I’ve already raved about it hereand on my YouTube channel.  Clearly, I love it and I’d definitely recommend it.  If you already have a microscope, consider prepared slides to go along with it.  {Under $40}

There are quite a few chemistry of food science kits that would be fun.  I hate buying these kits because they are a splurge for regular purposes.  But for a Christmas gift?  I love them! Make your own chocolate kit would be fun for an ancient history study, this candy chemistry kit contains 25 experiments and this Fizz Wizard & Jammin’ Jelly kit is sitting on our shelf waiting for a cold, January day where we need some fun to liven up our day. Home Science Tools has all kinds of fun science kits (among other neat finds), so poke around! {$14 and up}

I’m no expert on ‘game-schooling’, so I don’t have many games to recommend.  Instead, I’m sending you over to My Little Poppies and her gameschooling series.  If you can’t find a board game on her site that looks good, I’m afraid there may not be any out there for your family!!

We love Steve Spangler’s science activities & videos.  He has a list of 12 gift ideas and he also has subscription boxes that you can buy for a certain amount of months or just an individual box.  {Shhhh, don’t tell my kiddos but our homeschool is getting a subscription.}

As I mentioned in the Christmas Lego Challenge post, Legos are a big hit here.  While only my 9yo plays with them on his own time, the other two enjoy Lego challenges in our school day.  I like to keep a bucket of Legos in our homeschool room just for school time playing.  The small bucket of Classic Legos are perfect for that.  Since the classic sets aren’t for a specific build, they easily lends themselves to open-ended play.  The small set is large enough that multiple kids can do Lego challenges at the same time or one kiddo can build a decent-sized design on their own.

Have you read the rest of my 12 Days of Homeschool Christmas series?

• 25 Days of Christmas Lego Challenges {free printable}
• Random Acts of Holiday Kindness {free printable)
• 12 Winter-Themed Unit Study Ideas

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Every December, many YouTube channels participate in Vlogidays where they put out a video each day during the month, many of which are holiday-themed.
My Vlogidays 2016 playlist
My Vlogidays 2015 playlist

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