Last year we gave every child a new book for Winter Break. We bought them at the Scholastic Warehouse Sale and spent $889 for 600 kids. Two of us shopped all day looking for the best deals we could find, then we separated them by class and tied the stacks with ribbon before giving them to the classrooms.
In previous years we have also give students new books to read over the summer; for our outgoing 5th graders we try to supply one of the books on the required reading list for the middle school.
We give our students a gift every year at Christmas time. But after about 4 years of coming up with some great ideas, we are running out of good ones!! The gifts prior were very crummy and lacking originality. Our budget is $3 per child - and that's quite challenging to come up with a good gift for that amount. Our previous gifts included, custom stadium cushions, custom backpacks, playround balls and custom mood changing stadium cups. We are looking for something new and different so if anyone out there has some great ideas I would very much like to hear from you.
