I have a confession – I am horrible with thinking of good gifts for people in general. The adults I usually buy for buy what they want or need when they want or need it. The kids we usually buy for already have everything they want. As a recipient, I prefer experiences to things – fond memories with good friends are the best gift I could ask for. I think all of my adult friends would agree.
Recently we have had many birthdays we helped celebrate, and Christmas is coming up, and as per the usual, I have felt very unoriginal in my gift-giving. This year I wanted to give the kids something fun, and something that would last throughout the year.
I looked into the crates and monthly subscription boxes for kids, but that adds up quickly when you have a list of kids to buy for. Even with Black Friday deals, they were coming up around ten dollars per month per kid. As awesome an idea as they are, I feel like if I spent a little time, a little money and collected some household items, I could make my own much cheaper.
I thought what else can we give that I can buy in bulk for many kids and that will be something they receive throughout the year? I looked at kid’s magazines and found one that looked very promising: Ladybug by Cricket Media. It has received many Parent’s Choice Awards over the years and both the Ladybug and Babybug editions won the Gold Award in 2018.
I liked the pictures from the previews I could see and I liked how there were lots of visuals in Babybug to interact with and visuals to reinforce the meanings of chunks of text.
In Ladybug, I liked how there were short poems that could be read in duo, parent and child – the parent can read the poem, while tracking with their finger, and as they encounter a small picture, the child can “read” it.
So I purchased subscriptions for all of our little ladybugs, but then I pondered how can I communicate to them that this was a gift from us? I decided to let Mon Cœur (MC) do the explaining, with a fun craft. We took some postcards, construction paper, and glue. I cut out the body, wings, and head and glued it together, while she took an ink pad and her fingers to make the dots. She also went rogue, with a green marker she found: “Mommy I draw face!” she declared.
On the back, I wrote a simple little greeting from MC: “Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy your subscription to Ladybug magazine – it’s a year of adventures and stories to share!” and I slipped them in with our Christmas cards and off they went.
Do you have fun or creative gift ideas for the young darlings in your life? Share them in the comments section!
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