Inexpensive souveniers for 60 kindergarteners?

[gary4jenn]

and they sell for $3.50 (they also sell the exact same thing at the Disney stores).

I brought back 2 bags of Mickey pretzels for my dughters Kinder. class in Feb.
These work well since they don't contain peanuts and they were cheap and easy to bring back.

As someone reminded me b4 we left- its our vacation not theirs. Don't feel obligated to bring "something" back or you could end up paying a lot or obsessing that you need 60 individual presents.

Lets face it- Disney does not offer deals- You would be hard pressed to find 60 individual items for under $20.

Ask a cast member for 60 of the small shopping bags (who knows-they might accomodate you if you tell them why you need them), put all of the free stickers from CM's in the bags and throw a few dum dum suckers in them. That would make for nice individual gift if you have your heart set on that.

 

[BrerRabbit_fan]

Don't buy it at Disney. I bought my students cute mickey erasers I found that were 8/$1 at my local teachers store.

 

[Schmeck]

This thread makes me miss my job from last year - I work in the special ed department for our public school system, and was blessed to be placed in a kindergarten class last year!

I actually took a two week, unpaid leave of absence for our family reunion at WDW last year, at the end of October. For the 18 kindergarteners in my class, I had them write the name of their favorite Disney character. I still have those papers! Then, I got a pressed penny for each child, and taped it onto a postcard from AKL. You can buy books of postcards in the gift shops. Of course, this would be too expensive for 60 children, but you could just do the pressed pennies, or the postcards...

Schmeck, now assigned to the public high school, yuck, LOL!

 

[KPmom]

If you are staying onsite, ask for a stack of mickey coasters each day. (they should be happy to give them to you) Then have the coasters signed by different characters as you are collectiong your own autographs. Just say these are for my ds's class. Then send them in a disney bag and have your son allow each child to blindly choose a coaster. The kids will love the autographs and best of all it is free. This was posted on the budget board back at christmas time. Hope it works for you~KPmom

 

[elemusing]

We went at Christmas this past year and I found the chocoate wrapped coins at the candy store on Main Street for his class. You can get a whole bunch of them cheap and they have the characters faces on them. We also brought back stickers that a CM from our resort gave us. The teacher passed out the coins during snack time along with their regular snack and you would think the kids got real money. It was a hit.

 

[RUDisney]

Last time we took the kids out of school for WDW, they were in K and 1st grade. I found suckers at TDS, on sale. Like others have said, no one knew that they weren't from WDW, and I didn't have to carry them back with me.

And even better, they were prepacked into the kids' backpacks that they were taking to school the next day.

 

[HappyGramma]

How about pressed pennies at 51 cents each. There are many diffferent ones you can get, they have machines all over Disney. I think you can get a list of where the machines are at Guest relations. They'er small enough to be easy to carry back too.

 

[christinadei]

These are all great ideas. Now I think I'll do a little gift bag with a postcard, disney gummies, a sticker and either a lollipop, pencil or straw. I figure I'll let my son pick and pick out the post cards and all. Thanks for the ideas!

 

[ErinInCT]

I'm not sure if you are staying on site, but maybe you can ask mousekeeping for some of the adorable soaps or shampoos that have Mickey's pic on them! A friend of ours brought them back for us when they went & they are too cute!

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

Christinadei, if you look at the entrance of EPCOT just after you enter you can find cute little coloring books for free to add to your goody bags. I tutor reading to several children and brought bunches back for them and their friends. I asked first and was given permission to take loads.

Slightly Goofy

 

[Schmeck]

Before you spend a lot of money on food, you should make sure that none of the children have any food allergies! In our school system, we're not allowed to give candy gifts, ever, because of some severe allergies (life threatening peanut allergy, gluten allergy, two diabetics, lefe threatening latex allergy, etc.)

 

[Ariel Wanna-be]

EXCELLENT IDEAS!

I took all these ideas and put them on a notecard to bring with us. Using these, I should have no problem finding the kids something both cool and cheap!

Thanks for the great tips!!

Becky

 

[tjmw2727]

Instead of individual things for the kids we usually bring something back for the class as a whole. Some times its a book or two, age appropriate puzzle and more recently crafts.

On our last trip, my 9yo got a book of origami for her class at the Japanese pavilion and we got extra origami paper here at home at the craft store. We arranged it with the teacher and dd showed the class how to make some simple shapes and donated the book to the class. It worked out well and my girls now love to look for the fun and interesting thing to bring back to the class at every vacation, not just wdw.

TJ

 

[shmoops]

Another idea is a big bag of Mickey Mouse pretzels...

 

[northern michigan]

We've done the packages of character chocolate coins and pencils from the big WDW store at DTD twice. This year we found packages of 10 suckers with Disney characters on the wrappers. The neat thing was that each was a different flavor; some relatively unusual flavors. One was even "mystery flavor". We only found these at the big TOY store (not lego) at DTD. I don't remember this store from our previous trips. All these have gone over well in class. I don't know how you can get away with $15-20 for 60 students. I think we've spent twice that for 40 students.

I think we'll try the pressed coins next time for my dd's 2nd grade class as she got into them last trip. She'll love hunting them down and choosing a particular coin for each fellow student.

A couple of the candy stores have a special m&m area set up with the most unusual colors of m&m's. They are pricey by typical standards, but the colors were unique.