Hellobee Boards

I think they were probably thinking of it as an easy/cheap craft using catalogs and stuff they already had around, but I wouldn't be happy about it at all and I would definitely bring it up to the teachers. But I would probably also offer to bring in like extra school supplies or cut outs so they could do an activity about presents or something that had nothing to do with catalogs. I might also suggest they make the activity about GIVING - like think of a gift you would like to give to someone - and do a project based on that.

But I'm an annoying parents who sits on the preschool board.

Hm. Yeah, I wouldn't be okay with this. I appreciate how engaging this activity was, but not the premise of the activity. DD is only 3, but as a child I was allowed to ask for 1 or 2 things, not a whole list. Also, the websites feels so icky and commercialized to me. However, to put it in perspective, my daughter does attend a religious daycare.

I think that's REALLY weird. I don't think it's appropriate for a school to have preschoolers picking things out from magazines and websites and giving you a shopping list.

I would not be happy - $500 - $3000, sheesh. But even just the list with websites I wouldn't be very happy. And I agree that this it's not particularly sensitive towards those who either don't celebrate the holiday or who may be of lower socioeconomic status. Much better to have an activity that involves making a homemade gift FOR someone.

That would not be okay with me on several levels, but especially the concerns you mention about diversity--not everyone celebrates Christmas, including our family (and it's already halfway through Hanukah so def too late for a wish list for my kids, though that isn't even the point haha).

Our daycare doesn't do anything about any holidays. They focus on lights during this time of year as part of the curriculum as kids are seeing lights everywhere in the same way that they focus on leaves in the fall and seeds/plants in the spring, but nothing that the teachers plan is explicitly holiday-related and I so appreciate that. (though if a kid's own self-directed play is related to a holiday, they do support that, so like on halloween the preschoolers were pretending to be trick or treating, but the teachers didn't bring up the idea).

Our daycare did something similar, but they used catalogs and flyers from the mail for kids to cut out their favorite part of the holidays (so they created a collage with Christmas trees, snow, stockings, Christmas lights, decorations, food, etc.) I would also be annoyed with a wishlist to santa activity in daycare.

Nope nope nope nope nope. That activity is exclusive in SO many ways - people of other religions, families that don't celebrate Santa, families with fewer resources. Plus, let's NOT teach our kids to be materialistic consumers before we have to!

Yeah, that's jaw-droppingly inappropriate on so many levels. From pushing Santa on kids who aren't Christian (I don't know if there are any, but I doubt that the school does either. To putting the kids and the parents into a very unpleasant situation where the kids are whining for/expecting gifts they hadn't even thought of before, and the parents have to tell them no and deal with completely unnecessary hurt feelings (or go and buy stuff they hadn't wanted or needed). I definitely would not want to see this in my preschool.