Unsuspectingly Simple Gifts

I started off writing this list for my preschool newsletter for kids to promote inexpensive creativity-inspiring gift ideas that are fun & developmentally desirable. By the last item, I felt pretty jazzed about creating things too!

It's impossible not to think about gifts of some kind or another in the month of December.

When I was a kid, birthdays and Christmas were the only times we got anything new at all, and our greatest wishes were reliably granted. To this day I treasure that experience but struggle with the cycle of stuff lavishness and financial investment it required. As a new parent, I headed into the fray with the best of intentions: fourteen Christmases ago when my daughter was a year old, I used a stencil book of insect designs to make her a memory matching game on found wood tile scraps I had sanded to smooth the rough edges. I was gratified with my innovation, that I was creating her a brain toy to stimulate her (hopeful) inner-naturalist, all for the price of my time and a bottle of mod-podge to seal the inked drawings. For subsequent holidays, I set about making hand puppets from fabric scraps (those years I only allowed myself to buy the gold trimmings to make them 'fancy'), a doorway fabric puppet curtain (had to buy the tension rod), and gifts had to otherwise fit into a stocking.

It more or less worked to gift with a reliance on my own resourcefulness and maker's skills for their early years. But even I knew I would have to outgrow my frugality regardless of the pocket-book's dimensions. I was thinking well outside the box by limiting my own money-spending, though I overlooked the very simple option to take everyday objects and give the gift of permission to use them differently. When I became a preschool teacher, I noted a distinct and liberating factor in the classroom day after day. One of the single-most recurring instigators of joy and personal creativity for young children was the ability to make messes and use much. I know many people think of preschool as the place to make messes so you don't have as many at home; this holiday consider letting go of your grown-up complexities and let these fun, unsuspectingly simple gift ideas bring joy (and fine motor skill development through sensory play and unlimited exploration) into your home.

1. A Tape Dispenser
   Put your child's name on it, train yourself never to use it or need it, and stock several rolls of surplus tape for refilling as needed. Colored tape, 'real' scotch tape, masking tape, electric tape, you name it. I suggest sticking with the name brands because they are the easiest for children to manage, and the point of this gift is a child may use it limit-lessly and freely to connect objects, papers and promote all around design and construction integrity.
   
   
2. A Bottle of Dish Soap
   The Permission part of gift-giving is very important here, as this gift may only last for one play-session. Offer this gift with an empty sink or bathtub, or better yet provide the whole bathroom as a soggy laboratory that might require some serious clean-up attention when the bottle is empty. Not only does this gift provide a sensory experience with water, viscosity and smell, it teems with science play invitations to explore cause and effect, volume and quantity. Here's another place where you might want to buy the fancy brands, the least chemically-derived versions, as your child will most likely enjoy full-body immersion in this gift.
   
   
3. Shaving Cream
   You can do it cheap and color-less right out of the grocery store or find colored art supply versions in catalogs or art stores. Clear a table, or better yet the kitchen floor, provide a bathing suit, and show your child how to depress the button to squirt the cream. You'll give your child the gift of blank canvas and literacy evolution as fingers and toes 'draw' in thick relief.

4. Colored Wire and Pipe Cleaners
   The fabulously forgiving nature of bendable wire makes it a stress-free and three-dimensional art medium. For a child who doesn't like to get wet or messy, wire offers endless fine motor manipulation options, abstract and representational process to product, and each creation tends to inspire another one. We have always had pipe cleaners in the house, yet even my 9- year old daughter was over the moon about a wire sculpture art project at school and morphed her figure three times over on the car ride home.
   
   
5. Loose Parts
   Mix and match household parts and pieces to your heart's content to unleash designer/engineer/ modern-day Rube Goldberg contagion. Funnels, plastic containers, tubes, gears, rulers, sticks and marbles or small balls in a box transform into contraptions and inventions that inspire problem-solving, concentration and perseverance with a whole lot of satisfaction and fun. Be sure to include non-adhesive wall putty (for any surface) or zip ties (great for a peg board ) or velcro-backed hooks (for felt or fabric) and a surface at least two feet tall to build upon.

The list could be limitless. I hope it inspires you to let go of the commercial norms of how to make connections with your kids and make the holiday season joyful, fun and creative.