goody bag gifts for 2-3 yr olds

[HIU8]

DD is having a joint bday party with another little girl in her class. The mom of the other little girl already bought books as a goody bag gift from them. I have no idea what to do from DD. Any ideas?

[SnuggleBuggles]

Budget?

Beth

[HIU8]

budget? I hadn't thought about that, but I normally spend very little on goody bag stuff. However, since we are splitting the cost of the party I will spend more than I normally do. There will be 20 kids. What is reasonable, $5 a kid or more/less?

[sariana]

Are the guests all girls? Maybe hair accessories?

Those little rubber ducks in different costumes are popular with my DS (5) and DD (2).

Is there a theme?

[vonfirmath]

Balls! -- if you can't afford the nicer, larger ones, get the 3/$1 balls with holes at the Dollar Store and give those. My son uses both
balloons -- get a bunch of $1 balloons for decorations and hand 1 each to the children as they leave
Maybe those balloons that you blow up and then they have a thick rubber band to make them "punching balloons"

$1 coloring books and a set of crayons.

[HIU8]

The party is at a gym place. No theme and a mix of boys and girls.

[maydaymommy]

Bday party this weekend and part of the favors were really cute finger puppets. Found them at US Toy, but saw similar ones at the regular party store. There were 12 in a bag & the bag was less than 7 dollars. Each favor cup included 2 finger puppets. This was for (mostly) almost 3 year olds.

super cute and affordable finger puppets (http://www.ustoy.com/cgi-bin/ustoy_cgi.sh/WService=ustoy/2.0/find.htm?find_spec=finger+puppet&submit.x=0&submit.y=0)

[jellibeans]

Michael's has little marker/wooden animal packs that are $1/each. Also, you could try looking on Oriental Trading company to find things like pencils, pens, stamps, erasers, slinkies, beads and yarn. You could also look at the dollar bin in the front of Target.

[jamesmom]

Balls, bubbles, stickers, balloons and character-theme gummies or goldfish crackers are popular goody bag gifts for this age group.

[hillview]

playdough?

[fortato]

I gave out Lego shaped soaps last year... I found them on Etsy. That was a huge hit!

[alirebco]

stickers are always a good bet with that age group

[KrisM]

How about sidewalk chalk or bubbles?

[Melaine]

Oballs are $5 at Walmart, although I would probably look for something cheaper. Kidsurplus has free shipping over $25 right now and they always have fun stuff!

[SnuggleBuggles]

I would stick with 1 good thing vs a lot of little things. I know when we get a bag of miscellaneous, not that well made stuff, it tends to get played with for a few minutes then it either breaks or interest is lost. I think a container of Play Doh and one of the tools for it (they sell sets and you can break them up so each kid gets one) would be good. Bubbles or a ball would be perfect too. I don't think you need anything more than that (no snacks or filler).

Beth

[fortato]

Oh...and stay away from Oriental Trading. I ordered a bunch of Train things for Jack's first birthday, and 90% of them were just not good. The balloons didn't stay inflated, the gum rolls were stale, and the train whistles didn't work.

[HIU8]

Thanks everyone. You have given me a lot of good ideas to start from. This weekend I'm going to do some looking around at Michaels and a few other places to see what I can find. I really want one nice item to give away. Maybe something for the summer and outdoor play (b/c the other item from the other family is a book--just to balance things out).