Last Minute Girl/Boy Gift Ideas for 4-8 year olds ($5-15)

There are so many last minute gifts to get…your child’s secret buddy, your niece,  your neighbor’s son, the giving tree or your child’s best friend. Here are a couple of unique gifts we’ve given out because they were such HUGE hits with our own kids.

4- to 8-year-old girl

The past month, my kids have been obsessed with fuzzy felt friends. We sent this kit as a gift to my 5-year-old (almost 6) this year.

IMG_0165fuzzyfeltfriends

This kit allowed for days and days (weeks really!) of critter construction! When I bought them earlier this fall they were $10. The price is about $15 now (oops just checked now a few days later they are $16. So much for holiday bargains, right?), but in my opinion still very worth it for kids who like crafts! My girls (4 and 7) love these and can peel the stickers off the back independently.

FuzzyFeltFriendsMelissa and Doug now make Felt Friend Stickers: (affiliate link)

Felt Friends

 

4- to 8-year-old boy (or girl):

This is a unique gift idea for a science loving child…an owl pellet, along with a print out of the sorting chart of the bones. Owls eat mice, voles, snakes and other small animals. They swallow their prey whole and about eight hours later spit out the parts they can’t digest in a pellet of fur and bones. My kids loved dissecting these pellets and trying to determine what bones the owl had eaten. LD gave this to his gymnastics buddy at the holiday party last weekend.

The owl pellets have been sterilized, so you’re not going to expose your child to a dreaded disease. My kids are fascinated by all those tiny bones! (So is kitty!)

OwlPellets

 

The pellets cost $2.95 each (plus shipping) at Nature Watch. We bought five (the kids each did one again recently and we gave a couple out as gifts). We had to add in shipping, but it still wound up being reasonable to give out as a gift if you buy several (less than $5.00 each). We added in a wooden skewer and the print out.

If you’d like to see more, here is a previous post about this fabulous science activity–dissecting an owl pellet. I can’t rave enough about how excited the kids were doing it (and so was I!).

Other Games for 4- to 8-year-olds: Earlier this fall I reviewed a lot of the board games that my kids enjoy playing in our homeschool. You might want to look through the Games for Thinking and Learning category. I reviewed the cooperative game Secret Door. Card games like Blink and Set. A maze type thinking game called Lab Mice. Plus I talked about Zoo Logic, Clever Castle and more. These are all games that my kids play regularly. My kids’ favorite game (which I didn’t review?) is Adventures in Neopia which is a series of games within a board game.

Do you have any gift ideas to share with the rest of us…things your kids love doing? I’d love to hear from you!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page. Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! ~Liesl

2 Responses

  1. JJ says:

    My son just loves different learning games at the age of 4 1/2. we try to buy him different kinds of gifts for Christmas and his birthday just to feed his curiosity and imagination. I think the are the educational ones since they help mold the kids thinking skills.

  2. JJ says:

    My son just loves different learning games at the age of 4 1/2. we try to buy him different kinds of gifts for Christmas and his birthday just to feed his curiosity and imagination. I think the are the educational ones since they help mold the kids thinking skills.

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