Spending a day putting together a few gift box centers can help keep your child constructively busy all through the holidays.
I’ve already shared a few gift box centers and while I am on a roll, let’s keep the gift box center ideas coming! Today’s gift box centers are filled with all those cute little holiday things you have always wanted to get from a Dollar Tree but really didn’t know what to do with them. You ready to see the next set? Here we go…
Jingle Bells
Use this gift box to inspire a little singing and some magnetic play. I bought a few bags of jingle bells and added a couple of magnetic wands. I will tell you that you don’t need this many jingle bells to make this fun. In fact, there might be a few too many in my box (I tend to get a little carried away). I also glued some magnets inside the lid of the box to hold the wands but the children liked to stick the bells to them instead. You just never know what kids will do!
I Spy Game
Young children never get tired of “I Spy.” To make this game, we put a bunch of Dollar Tree trinkets in the box and then glued one kind of each trinket to the inside of the Christmas Box lid. The children played with this in a variety of ways. Some children really liked trying to find all the trinkets that matched one in the lid. Others just wanted to sit and explore each trinket. And some children enjoyed sorting, counting, or organizing the trinkets. This was a very popular center with lots of opportunity for open-ended play.
Holiday Graphing
In this box, we added a select number of objects like 5 stars, 4 bows, and so on. The children sorted the trinkets on a sheet of prepared graph paper. How the children chose to use the graph and trinkets was entirely up to them but most of the children caught onto the idea very quickly and sorted the items as intended. By the way, graphing is something we had been doing for awhile in our classroom so this was not a stretch for them to figure it out.
More to come!
As you can see in the photo below, there are lots of ways you can use Gift Box centers. Whether you bring them out one at a time or set them all out at once, like I did for our Holiday Party, you will definitely be able to put them to good use.
Have I got you thinking yet?
If you are thinking of setting up your own gift box centers, I would love to hear about your plans! Leave a comment below and tell me what you are thinking.
