What holidays if any does/will

Littlejen22 · September 2012

Your child bring gifts for their friends in elementary school? In preschool kids usually brought stuff for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentines Day. I have no idea what is common at our public elementary school, right now I do not even know what holidays they have parties for in Kindergarten.

Brewtowngrl · September 2012

They asked us not to bring things in for birthdays.

Littlejen22 · September 2012

Oh, I know for birthdays you can bring a snack which can be something brought from outside or "order" ice cream cups from the cafeteria which the school prefers for the ease although I do not know if afternoon Kindergarten can do that since the cafeteria closes shortly after they start class.

neverblushed · September 2012

I think this varies from school to school. You will want to check with your child's teacher to find out how this is handled at your particular school.

At my son's elementary school, there are class parties on Halloween and Valentine's Day. It is usually coordinated by the teacher or a volunteer parent. The school acknowledges kids' birthdays, but they do not allow kids to bring in treats for the whole class. There are two reasons for this: food allergy problems and the distraction from instructional time.

In addition to the whole-school parties for Halloween and Valentine's Day, my son has had some sort of special day very close to Christmas break both years, although it was not explicitly tied to Christmas. For instance, in K, they did a "gingerbread man" party on the last day before break. In first they had just written personal narratives, and they had an "author party" on the day before break started. I thought that was a really nice way to acknowledge that it's a celebratory time of year for many families, without being inappropriate in a really diverse school where about 30% of the kids are not Christian and do not celebrate Christmas.

ppants · September 2012

My kids are in 1st grade and they've only brought home treat bags from a classmate's birthday. They also did an Easter egg hunt with treat filled eggs.

jlw2505 · September 2012

Your school will send out notices for any parties and typically the class parent will email out a list of things that are needed for parties. My kids school does not allow food treats to be brought for birthday celebrations and for parties, it is really closely watched and must be healthy if they have food at all. For Halloween, they do a huge fall festival on the Sat before Halloween. Not sure if the classes do anytype of party. My older DD was in the PreK last year and is in Kindy this year and while they follow the rules of the school, they had more class parties than the K-6 grades. The PreK class did not do anything for the winter holidays but we did go in with some other families and bought a gift for the classroom vs getting the teachers individual gifts and for Valentines Days, all grades did exchange cards but again, not sure about big parties and we were asked not to have candy with the cards but you could do other items (pencils, toys, stickers, etc).

UberBiz · September 2012

You should get notes home about all those guidelines from your child's teacher. This year my DD is in second grade, and they are going through the class list taking turns bringing in a snack for everyone (so, once ever 21 days). Birthday treats are always welcome and there really are no guidelines, except maybe no peanut products in case of allergies. Her school has always done Halloween treats, and Valentine's cards, candy, and whatever the heck else you want to send in.

There aren't any healthy guidelines that you HAVE to follow, though of course it's recommended. But so far kids have brought in cookies, brownies, string cheese, and when it was our turn I made popcorn (not microwave) and made up snack bags for everyone.