Gift Guide
Written By Emily Bylund
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner so let's talk about gift ideas for classmates and for teachers. These are a few ideas you can easily make up for your kids classroom Valentine’s party this year.
Valentine's Day Teacher/Classmate Gifts | For the Kids
First up, let's do the classmate one. I know you can simply give a candy for the classmate exchange, but I like to give a small toy and candy as an option for the kids that can't have candy, dyes, etc. I found these cute little Lego-like building sets on Amazon. It was a pack of 24 for $26, so that's a little bit more than a dollar a set. I love this idea because it is not candy or food related, and so many kids have food restrictions or allergies.
This specific set has 12 different animals you can build, which I thought was a really great variety. Since there were twenty-four packs in the set, and my daughter only has 20 kids in her class, we were able to do a few of them and put them together. We were able to see what they looked like ahead of time, which was an extra fun activity for us and also allowed us to see what she was giving to her friends. My favorite is the hippo. I just like how intricate it is and that it's a bright color. My daughter's favorite is the Penguin because she's really into penguins right now.
Jackie is also really into Ring Pops and she loves Encanto, so I thought adding an extra something to the toy set would be kind of a good fit coming from her.
To get these ready to give to friends, I put a ring pop and a building set together in a clear cellophane bag. Since these building sets come with a Valentine's day tag on them, I just folded that down so it was easily visible from the outside. Then, I tied these off with a red or pink tulle ribbon. I am going to add a little tag with her name on it so they know who it's from. At her school, they don't add specific names on the tags, they just want you to provide a certain number for how many kids are in the class. I love how simple and sweet and so "Jackie" these turned out and I think her friends will really love them.
Valentine's Day Teacher/Classmate Gifts | For the Teachers
Now let's talk about gifts for teachers. I've been really into making soap recently. If you were around at Christmas time, you know I did this then as well. I have these really cute heart silicone molds for the project and this time I got clear soap base to use instead of white. I cut up the clear soap base into little cubes so I could microwave it and melt it down. I found it's better to microwave in smaller batches because it is a lot easier to work with when you are stirring it up and pouring into the mold.
Once all the soap was melted, I gave it a good stir. Then it was time to add some of the coloring. I decided to use a peach color, which actually came out more pink than peach. I added one scoop of coloring and made sure to stir it in really, really well. You can also scent the soap if you want to. I didn't this time because I didn't have anything that wasn't Christmas-y. Once the color was all mixed in, it was time to pour.
You want do this as fast as possible because the soap will start to harden. Once everything was poured, I let it to set for 2-3 hours. This ensures everything will be nice and hard and ready for removal. To remove it, I simply popped the soap out of the molds. Pro tip: wear gloves. This stuff will stain your hands in the soap making process if you don’t!
Once all the soap was ready, I put it into these cute heart cellophane bags along with some chocolate kisses, and then tied them off with either red or pink tulle ribbon. And that's it! It's super simple, but also something homemade and not something you have to print!
I hope you enjoyed these holiday classroom gift ideas. Stay tuned for more for other holidays too! You can shop anything I used for the gifts or soap making below.
Valentine's Day Teacher/Classmate Gifts | Shop
Emily Bylund
