As I've explained throughout the years, instead of giving each child a present to take home, I buy daycare a new present each week from Thanksgiving to New Year's. The short story is that the kids spend so much of their time at daycare that it makes more sense to get them toys they can play with at daycare than a gift they could take home. Of course, I'm coming up on thirteen years in business, so there's not a lot of toys daycare "needs." I didn't do any big gifts, but instead went the replacement and upgrade route.
1.) Big Pop It squares showed up in the fidget bin the first week. The littles use these when they play the floor is lava because it "tickles feet."
2.) New Christmas books quickly became favorites. My Butt Is So Christmassy made the kids giggle a lot. I had to send disclaimers home for parents so they knew what their kids were talking about when they heard them talking about "Christmas butts."
3.) Duplos are a favorite around here. I really wanted this giant set, but our Duplo bins are already rather full, so I settled on a the Wild Animals of the Ocean and Wild Animals of South America sets. They stayed set up for a day before the kids took them apart and built their own sets.
4.) The car sets, whether it's our bin of Hot Wheels or the Wheelies, are played with constantly. The kids have been racing the cars lately, so I got a four pack of Little Tikes Crazy Fast cars. It was love at first race!
5.) Little Tikes never disappoints. I saw this First Food Delivery Set and had to have it. What I didn't realize is it has some small felt pieces (for taco toppings), so I had to take some of those out, but overall this toy was a big hit. Even my ten and twelve year olds played with it (but refused to let me take pictures of them playing with the daycare toys).
6.) I couldn't forgot about my daycare bigs. They always come back for part of Christmas break to hang out with their daycare friends. They played board games constantly over the summer, which means there were a lot of missing pieces to the two most popular games, Life and Clue. They also love Ticket To Ride, so I nabbed a New York pack when it was on sale in the fall. The bigs also love Lego and creating houses, hotels, and mansions. Lego plates always seem to be in short supply because they're always used, so I grabbed a handful of them when they were on sale for $6 a piece. My minis broke into the games over the weekend and approve of games with no missing pieces.