Preschool silent auction item ideas that actually sell

For the general list, see our 100+ silent auction item ideas. A preschool catalogue is unusual in two ways: the best items are made by three-year-olds, and the whole room knows what everybody else bid.

Made by the children

• A class handprint canvas, one per class
• A hand-painted tile, stool, bench or planter
• A quilt with a square from each child
• A recipe book of the children's own instructions, printed
• A class song or story recorded and pressed
• A garden stepping-stone set

These carry the auction. The consent, fairness and "two parents want the same canvas" problems are on keepsake and class art items, and they are worth reading before anything is made.

The school's own access and time

• Front-of-the-line at pickup for a term, or a reserved parking space
• Line leader or special helper for a week
• The teacher reading a story of the winner's choosing to the class
• A birthday celebration hosted at the school
• Naming the class pet, the reading corner or the garden bed
• A director-for-a-morning experience for a child

These cost the school nothing and they are what a four-year-old will talk about for a month, which is the actual product a parent is buying.

Things a family with small children genuinely wants

• A babysitting night from a trusted teenager, arranged and paid for
• A date-night package with the sitter included
• A weekend activity bundle: soft play, swimming, a museum
• A family photography session
• A birthday-party-in-a-box, or a hosted party at a venue
• A freezer-meal delivery for a fortnight

The sitter and the meal delivery are the two that outdraw everything ordinary. Every family in the room has the same problem and neither is easy to buy.

Price for the whole room

This matters more here than at any other kind of auction, because everybody can see everybody. A catalogue where the good items are all out of reach for half the families tells them the event was designed around somebody else, and in a school of forty households that is a lasting impression.

• A genuine low tier that anybody can win — a small class craft, a book bundle, a single class-helper day
• A middle tier where most bidding happens
• One or two headline lots, which is where the keepsakes sit
• Splitting a keepsake into several smaller pieces where the class produced them, so more than one family goes home with something

What to keep out

• Any photograph or name of a child beyond what enrolment paperwork permits
• Anything implying preference in admission, class placement or a teacher's attention
• Alcohol lots at an event children attend
• Items that assume a household budget well above your parent body
• Anything a teacher was volunteered for rather than offered

The last one is easy to cross. A teacher offering a story reading is lovely; a committee listing a teacher's Saturday without asking is a staffing decision made by parents, and it is the kind of thing that quietly damages a small school.

General information, not tax or legal advice for your school. Whether a payment is deductible depends on the receiving entity's status and on what the payer received — check with your own adviser before telling families anything about it.