Are you looking for great gift ideas for the homeschooling family on your Christmas list? Are you shopping for gifts that you hope will help them on their educational journey? Maybe you are looking for some presents that will be useful in their homeschooling efforts.
Maybe you are a homeschool parent looking for some brilliant Christmas gift ideas to help your kids learn and succeed academically. Or perhaps you are searching for ideas that will engage your kids more with their studies.
Whichever category you are in here, I have ideas for you; ideas galore! Ideas for kids, the entire family, and even a few for the homeschooling moms. Because being a homeschooling mom is no picnic! So, check out these great gift ideas for the homeschooling family on your Christmas shopping list. (And, just so you know, if I recommend any product or source, it is because I have used or enjoyed it myself. I have no professional affiliations with anything I list and make no commissions from anything.)
Great Gift Ideas that Benefit the Entire Homeschooling Family
Annual Pass to a Local Museum, Zoo, or other Cultural Attraction
Field trips can significantly enhance a child’s education. But have you ever calculated how much it costs for entry for a family to a major museum? Don’t forget to add parking fees to your calculations! I don’t know about you, but most homeschooling families I know are not members of the “wealthy” class, and a trip to a major attraction like a museum or a zoo is a sacrificial expense. Consider gifting your homeschooling family or friends an annual membership to a museum, a zoo, a botanical garden. In many cases, a yearly family membership costs about the same as a single visit for a larger family. And a membership allows them to explore the attraction in small doses multiple times throughout the year. And if the membership allows them to bring a guest or two, you can join them for their next field trip. Bonus!
Family Tickets to an Experience
We usually took our vacations and visited my grandmother in northern Minnesota when I was a kid. It was a cheap vacation. Hang around Grandma’s house, fish, swim, tromp through the woods. Pretty low-key. By the time I got older, my parents had decided that we needed to broaden our horizons or something, so they took us on some more adventurous trips. Many of our experiences on those vacations were gifted to us by my dad’s aunt and uncle. Mystic Harbor in Connecticut, Maid of the Mist boat ride at Niagara Falls, an old steam engine train ride from Silverton to Durango, Colorado (waterfalls everywhere!). What experience can you gift your homeschooling family? Maybe tickets for everyone to a play or musical theater production or a concert. Admission to an adventure. Consider their plans and interests and gift them an unforgettable experience!
Subscriptions or Memberships
Music or Video Streaming Services
Many homeschooling families supplement their curriculum and teaching with related documentaries. Sure, you can find a lot of content on YouTube, but perhaps there is a better source for documentaries that requires a subscription or membership. Consider gifting the family a subscription to their favorite content streaming source. Bonus – subscriptions or memberships tend to eliminate commercials!
Magazine Subscriptions
Hey, I know most people do everything online or digitally, but there is still a place for printed materials in this world. Besides, many subscriptions give access to both printed and digital content. So, consider gifting a magazine subscription. So many options exist for a wide variety of interests! Nature, cooking, science, sewing, woodworking, cars, sports, news, history – you name the subject, and there is a magazine for it! You can find magazines for very young children and different periodicals for high school students. Always consider what is appropriate for the age level, interest, and family viewpoint, and ideology.
Why magazine subscriptions?
- The photographs, pictures, charts
- Variety of viewpoints
- Easy access to content
- Expand your perspective
Enhance the educational experience of your homeschooling family with an appropriate magazine subscription.
Books, Always Books!
Many homeschool families are avid book readers, book lovers, and book collectors. Can you have too many books? Or ever have enough bookshelves? Books are always a good gift option. Classic books, subject-related books, literature books, reference books, picture books – all are worthy gifts. If your homeschooling family includes Bible studies as part of their education, I strongly recommend a good Bible atlas. We have used the Holman Bible Atlas for several years. I enjoy the maps as well as the informative comments provided. Also, world atlases on different age levels are great tools for any student.
Educational Games/Board Games/Card Games
I could argue that, in some sense, almost all games are educational, but some lend themselves more specifically to academic subjects. We just enjoyed several rounds of the game Chronology – a game that requires the players to place historical event cards in chronological order. There is no need to know the exact dates of events, but it is necessary to have a sense of “when.” Last week, my son was joking that he gained his geography knowledge from the game Risk. A game based on maps will make learning geography much more fun. Rainbow Resource Center is my favorite source for finding educational games and puzzles.
Coloring Books
Yes, coloring books can be fun educational assets! You can find coloring books about so many different subjects – history, science, nature, geography, etc. The time spent coloring can allow the mind to think, reflect, absorb more information about the subject. Scripture coloring books offer time to reflect on the Scripture passage or thought while coloring. And even random coloring books can help kids pay attention better during read-aloud time.
Timelines
Timelines are visual methods of relating historical events to each other. They can range from simple listings of dates and events to massive displays of events from different subject areas, all related by time. They can cover all human history or focus on specific historical periods. Timelines can be homemade, purchased, displayed on walls, bulletin boards, designed on computers or apps, or filled-in in books. I have used The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun, but many others are available. (Some say this is too “euro-centered.) I like this one because it categorizes information and events by subject matter – I can read what is happening in history and easily connect it by date to what is happening in the Bible, the arts, science, and technology.
School Supplies
School supplies are usually cheaper and on sale during July and August, but what if you need to stock up during the year? All those notebooks or crayons are more expensive then! So maybe Your homeschooling friends or family members would appreciate a restocking of their school supplies for Christmas.
Calculators
Every high school math student will need a good calculator and probably a graphing calculator. Have you priced any of those recently? My youngest son had been using a calculator that several of his older siblings had used – until that graphing calculator died. I was a bit shocked at the prices of new graphing calculators! So maybe you know a math student who needs a new calculator. Their parents will appreciate your gift – perhaps more than the student does!
Other School Supplies
When I was a kid, the coolest school supplies were the massive boxes of crayons (with a built-in crayon sharpener) and a pen that could write in six different colors! Those items probably aren’t high on anyone’s lists anymore, but here is a list of some additional school supplies that children or parents in homeschooling families might appreciate:
- Compass and Protractor
- Colored Pencils
- Highlighters
- Notebooks, Folders, Binders
- Staplers
- Hole Punch
- Pencil Sharpener
- No. 2 Lead Pencils (especially for those preparing for standardized testing)
- Mechanical Pencils
Educational “Kits”
Premade “kits” make great gifts and add to a child’s education. Consider things like science kits, craft kits, construction kits, candle-making kits, etc. Science kits can have kids building simple robots, learning about electricity, digging for fossils. Craft kits involve kids in everything from woodworking to sewing, from soap-making to model construction. And along the way, kids will learn to work with their hands, follow directions, and gain the satisfaction of completing a task.
Great Gift Ideas just for the Homeschooling Mom
Yes, I know that some dads are the main homeschoolers in the family, but since I have the worst time thinking of gift ideas for my husband, I am just focusing on ideas for the moms. Homeschooling is no easy task, and when you add that to all the other responsibilities that a mom has, I think she deserves some extra pampering and gifts. So treat your homeschooling mom friend to something special this year. Here are just a few ideas:
- Coffee/Tea selections
- A Mug Warmer to keep the coffee or tea warm enough to drink – when she has time to drink it!
- Gift Cards/Certificates (Starbucks, Local Coffee Shop, Bookstore, Restaurant, Spa, Nail Salon)
- Maid Service
- An encouraging devotional book
- Offer to Babysit for an evening
- Give the gift of Listening
- Something Beautiful
Well, this ended up being longer than I anticipated. Thanks for sticking with me to the end! I hope you got some great gift ideas for the homeschooling family on your Christmas list. Happy Shopping!
Again, my favorite resource for homeschool books, games, puzzles, books is Rainbow Resource Center! See what they have to offer here.
And if you want to know what homeschooling moms REALLY want, check out this post.
