We’ve been putting together a special gift guide this year for the little ones, gifts that our kids have enjoyed for 2019 that are unique and made with love. These gifts let your child’s imagination run wild, some involve them being active and best of all, none involve a screen! 

Don’t get me wrong, we love our movie time around here – big time, but it was important to us to share our favourite gifts that let your little ones explore the world around them, to create and gifts that your kids can truly PLAY with, for more than a few minutes on Christmas morning ha! Some of these gifts are handmade, they support small shops and their families. This is truly important to our team here at Bonjour Bliss Blog. 

ONE

Jaq Jaq Chalk Books – These books are a hit in our home and while traveling, they come with dust free chalk (hallelujah) and inspire the artist within your little one. Around here we have been learning a ton about Artists from the past like Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas and many more. After learning about Van Gogh and Degas we went right to these creative chalk books afterwards to let the kids create on their own with the inspiration from their studies. They LOVED this project and they love travelling with these books on plane rides or road trips, they are the perfect size for a small back-pack – their dust-free chalk packs easily inside and there are blank pages within to use their imaginations or even play a quick tic-tac-toe game too. The ones we have are from their artist series but there are many others to pick from too! You can find them {HERE} or {HERE} to get them before Christmas. PS, they also have an adorable chalk table runner that is a big hit at our house during family dinners for the kiddos!

TWO

Dough Parlour – Non Toxic Natural Dough – This modelling dough is also a hit at our house, as are the nostalgic scents that are entirely non-toxic, FINALLY!!!! We have so much fun creating with these products, especially because we also use their super fun cookie cutters (my favourite is the lama one). “Fond memories of imagining, shaping and creating play dough masterpieces have filled homes for decades. One such home is that of Natalie’s – founder of Dough Parlour Inc.. As an early years educator, driven to inspire through sensory play, Natalie spent more than 10 years refining and defying her dough recipe to create an epic experience…Being a mom herself, Natalie always considered the well-being of her students, and only used 100% non-toxic ingredients. She wanted to optimize play experiences and improve her students’ physical and cognitive development…

Natalie understood the connection between smell and neurophysiology. She infused her dough with cheerful scents (100% food-based!) to stimulate their senses, emotion and memory. Not only was her soft, fresh playdough an easy sell in engaging her students and promoting their fine motor skills, it became a positive, calming play experience.”

You can find this natural play dough {HERE}, they’ve kindly given us an exclusive discount code for you guys for 20% off with the code DOUGHROX!

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THREE

Balancing Blocks by Imaginations Unbound – We have these blocks in the white set and the Beach Colours set, our kiddos call them the Inukshuk Blocks as that is what we predominantly build haha. Each set comes in a fabric travel bag and they are honestly a great activity to bring along on a road trip or to the beach, I love watching the kids build with these and seeing what kind of structures they can come up with since you have to really think about how to balance them based on their unique shapes. I also love that they aren’t plastic!!! You can find these blocks {HERE}.

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FOUR

Kimboo Wobble Board – Another favourite in our home for not only the littles, but the big kids too (ahem, me). These get the kids active and adults too, we do fun “workouts” with these and sometimes the kids just want to lay back and read a book in them. Another non-plastic gift, these are made in Canada and made with love! “The KIMBOO™ wobble board reflects the Steiner-Waldorf philosophy and allows kids to explore and develop many skills. It also evolves with them and therefore can be used by kids of all ages. The KIMBOO™ wobble board will help kids train their stability and agility, will strengthen their muscles, will develop their motor skills and most importantly will engage them in playing for a long time!“ You can find their wobble boards and other items {HERE}

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FIVE

Pfeiffer Supply Watercolor Paint – This is something we use DAILY in our home, we paint every morning. The kids love starting the morning this way, letting their imaginations run wild! Why do we love these paints? They are handmade first of all and CLEAN, non-toxic paints. “Pfeiffer Art Supply began with wanting to craft pure, vibrant, non-toxic pigments and other natural ingredients such as: organic honey, a natural preservative, and gum arabic into beautiful, buttery watercolor pans of paint. These are not paints bought from your local art store and squeezed into paint pans. The pigments are all mulled by hand on a glass slab. Also, each paint is poured by hand into their half or whole sized pans. Each color takes about a week from start to finish to create and no two will look “perfect” or alike.” Their travel size pans are a favourite, you may remember that we brought them with us to Exuma, Bahamas on our last trip and the kids painted daily in their watercolour vegan journals – something we can all look back on! Handmade paints are more of an investment than your standard store bought paints, but after you do some research on the ingredients in the other paints you will understand why we use these. Not only are these paints safer for our little ones, we love supporting this shop where ever paint is made with love & care. Find the watercolor kits {HERE}, there is a 20% off end of year sale currently taking place too! 

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SIX

Beige Bois – Natural Wooden Toys – The kids have a few favourites from this shop that we use quite often, especially when learning on-the-go or at home. We love their wooden alphabet letters, they’ve been great for making spelling fun and learning games – this is another item we always bring on our travels as the letters come in a linen travel bag! Another favourite from their shop that we use are the multiplication wooden tablets, also easy to bring on your travels and the kids get a kick out of using these for fun math activities. These toys are wooden which is also something we prefer to purchase, they are made sustainably and with love – and we are not polluting our oceans with more plastic purchases by investing in these pieces! In this shop you will find a super cute wooden golf set for your littles and many more creative items, wooden cameras, jump rope sets and even a magnetic alphabet disk set too. Find their items {HERE}!

SEVEN

Gratitude Journal by Robyn Liechti- This is actually a new purchase for us, at home this year we’ve been using blank journals to daily chat as a family about what we are grateful for. Every morning the kids write the date and draw something they are grateful for, together we write why. It’s a great activity to do together and something that is so very important to me as a parent. Our kids get to do a lot of traveling and enjoy many experiences I didn’t as a child, I want them to be grateful for these things. A local mama named Robyn started these gratitude journals for adults and children, for Christmas we have the children’s books for each of the kids and in the New Year we plan to start using them together. The books are called ‘The Making of a Grateful Heart’ and Robyn generously sent us her book to read with the littles before we begin using these journals. I even snagged a journal for my mom “The Making of a Grandparent” and I plan to order one for myself “The Making of an Entrepreneur” – Boss Babe Edition! “The Making of a Grateful Heart is a five minute journal, and it’s benefits will last a lifetime. This inspirational children’s gratitude journal looks at the wonderful in your child’s day and also encourages finding a lesson in their least favourite parts. It’s also a great tool for your child to practice writing!” I personally believe that this is a great gift for any child, you can find all of Robyn’s journals {HERE}.

EIGHT

Speaking of books, have you checked out our reading advent from last year? We shared some of our favourite books last year that make perfect gifts for your little ones! This year we plan to grow our Little People Big Dreams library since they’ve added the boys edition. We purchased the Gandhi one, Stephen Hawking one and Bruce Lee book for Noah and for Ella we added to her collection with the Jane Goodall and Georgia O’keeffe. We LOVE these books as much as the kids too, they teach important lessons that will last a lifetime wishfully! A couple of other books we are enjoying for the kids right now are What Would Danny Do? This book discusses the power to choose and how your choices shape your day. You can find this book {HERE}. We have also been enjoying is all about the misunderstood Aye Aye, a very interesting animal. The kids loved this book and at the end it teaches you how to draw one step by step! “Aye-Aye Gets Lucky” is about a misunderstood lemur finding a way to win the love of the villagers, but look deeper and it’s a story about empathy, self-acceptance, community and second chances. You can find this book {HERE}. 

NINE

Board Games – We are a family that loves game night, we play UNO almost daily and scrabble is also a big hit and a fun way to learn spelling and reading too! There are SO many great educational board games, they are a great way to do something as a family with a little healthy competition too ha. The kids and I play Monopoly sometimes, we love the game ‘Scaredy Squirrel’ and my dad recently bought the kids the nostalgic Operation – hilarious to watch and sometimes not as easy as I remembered. JENGA, Pictionary, Charades, SORRY, Trouble, Guess Who and many more! What are your favourite board games to play as a family? Share them in the comments below and I’m sure our readers will catch a glimpse and find more great ones to enjoy! 

TEN

Forest Journal & Magnifying Glass – We started using our Forest Journal and Magnifying Glasses last summer when we took care of Monarch Butterflies as they grew & hatched and released them afterwards. We’ve continued to use them every day while outside, exploring our forest in the backyard and on local trails. We observe bugs, plants, snowflakes close up – you name it. It’s science on the go! What we found on our outdoor adventures begin our science studies inside and also geography, they make for great crafts afterwards as well with leaves when they fall off of the trees in the fall or even different rocks our kids never fail to collect while on the trails ha! There are so many forest journals you can find online but these are our favourites, I use this journal {HERE} for my Forest School planning, the kids use these nature journals {HERE} for what they find and you can find our wooden magnifying glasses {HERE} by Lil’ Bellies.