The Ultimate Gift Giving Guide for the Homeschooled Tween

Today’s video is very much a fun, light hearted video. I know it can be hard shopping for a tween, they’re not really into toys anymore, but they kind of still are… they just call them fidgets or “supplies”, but like you’ll see here, a couple of my daughter’s gifts are absolutely still toys. I've made it super easy for you by creating an amazon cart with everything linked that I'm talking about today. If you're tuning into this anytime through Dec 2, most of the items in the cart are deeply discounted for Black Friday Week also. 

First, if you’re new here welcome! I’m Tonya Johnson and I’m the founder of helping hearts homeschool where we work with homeschool parents to put the fun back into homeschooling while focusing on keeping a biblical worldview. 

I do want to say before we get started that my daughter is a middle tween. Depending on who you ask, tweens are like the 8-12 range which shocked me. I thought tweens were 11 and 12 year olds, but I guess that category is getting younger and younger. Having said that, most of what I’m going to show you guys would work for that whole age range, but because my daughter is right in the middle, a couple things wouldn’t be suitable for an 8 year old probably, and a couple things would be too little kiddish for a 12 year old for example, so just use your discretion.

I Suggest not buying a book series unless you’re for sure that your tween wants it. Go to the library, check out the first book from a few different series and let your tween explore them, then once something speaks to them, you can always add that to next year's Christmas list. I go through a list of the books over in the corresponding video if you want to check it out. I have not personally read all of these, so do your homework and make sure they fit in the guidelines you have for your family before introducing them to your tween daughter. 

Games and puzzles are a great way to give the gift of family time that will last throughout the year. If you haven’t watched our 12 days of Christmas movies video that was posted on the 13th, you’ll want to go watch that. I go over a lot of the games we got in that video because they will be given throughout the twelve days leading up to Christmas. I did put together a huge list of games, both educational and non that we currently own and those are in this amazon cart. If you'd like to order the personalized puzzle we got her, you can order here. 

Now these are not your ordinary school supplies, these are the special things your kids want that are a little bit more of a splurge, definitely not necessary, but Christmas is a good time to give some of those things. Again, each category is gone over in detail with a ton of examples of gifts we've either bought this year or last in the corresponding video. 

These are some of those "toys" that our tweens don’t call toys anymore. Any hobby that your tween has, this is a good time to get some of those supplies they’ve been wanting or maybe they already have but are running low on. 

Subscriptions are a great way to give a gift that gives all year long. Be sure to check out our video all about the top digital subscriptions coming out next week as well. I've mentioned several of our favorites in the video, but the video next week goes into much more detail about the top digital subscription services for homeschoolers. 

Since we're on the topic of digital subscriptions, I have to let you guys know that the "Homeschool Made Fun" Academy is having a huge sale for Black Friday. This week only, when you enroll in the Academy, you get 9 months on us!

Memberships are also a great year long gift, or if you’re like us, a season long gift. Whaat we’re doing this year is getting a 4 month trampoline park membership because May-September we swim. We purposely bought a house with a community pool, and we swim 4-5 times weekly, usually with friends, so we’re constantly having fun right in our own backyard. Then October-December we do all of the holiday things that our community offers, not to mention the homeschool parties we host at our home every month. Then January-April we don’t really have much to get out of the house and go do, so a friend of mine suggested getting our girls' trampoline park memberships so they can go together a couple times a week to get some exercise and burn off some of that energy after school. Several other ideas are talked about in the video. 

Self care is definitely a category for tween girls that you can tailor it to each of the ages in the tween group. A big one we’re doing for Glori this year is a skincare set. She’s been wanting skin care for about a year now, and she has a basic face wash and moisturizer from the dollar store. What I told her is I’d buy her a nicer set if she could prove to me that she actually would use skin care consistently. She’s almost to that point, so I bought her a $20 elf set. It’s not the nicest I know, but for her age and her level of discipline when it comes to skincare, I think it’s perfect. I wasn’t going to buy a $150 skincare set for her to not use it consistently, so elf is what she’s getting this year. I honestly think she’s going to love it.

Here’s another example of toys for tweens. Pop-its were a big thing in our house the last few years. This year she’s more into squishy balls, but I did find a pop-it game that I think she’s going to really like that I’ll prob just put into her stocking.

Again, another “tween toy” category. Something she asked for last year, but after I had already bought everything, was this barbie slime thing (it's really cool, check it out in the video). She loves the color reveal barbies and she loves slime, so this is the best of both worlds. A year later she still talks about these every time we see them at the store, so this year they have a new release that combines the barbie color reveal with slime and boba which she goes crazy for currently. This is really her only legit toy this year which makes me a little sad, but that’s ok. This is the first christmas season that she’s really felt like a tween and I’ll be honest, I’ve had all of the emotions. It’s such a fun age with all of the crafts and activities we get to do that are a little bigger because she’s older and able to do more. The Christmas magic is still definitely there which I’m so thankful for, but I do miss the season of baby dolls and pretend play sets. We do our best to keep her innocent and young, but we’re prob down to the last year, maybe two before we’ll be ready to rehome her big Barbie House, and I’ll probably cry. 

Last year legos was our theme, and it was a huge hit! We even did the twenty-four days of Christmas legos, and it was so much fun.

The last section I put on here are clothes/accessories. Again these aren’t just normal clothes, they’re those expensive pieces that your tween wants but you just can’t justify spending $50 on a track suit just because. 

I hope these ideas help you with what to get your tween especially with Black Friday shopping being just around the corner. If you have a unique gift you're giving this year, I'd love to hear it down in the comments! 

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