The Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmos were once top toys.

This year, some local students are working to find out what will be hot.

“We conducted a campus survey with the idea of helping adults avoid gift giving mistakes,” said Cody Neil, 5^th grader.

He and other 5^th graders at HISD’s Longfellow Elementary Tuesday announced some surprising results from their toy survey.

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Gift cards are tops with kids this holiday season.

Pedro Martinez explained how the survey worked. “We made our survey toy list based on what we thought kids would be interested in. We even threw in a few things we thought they would not want like socks and underwear. Just to keep things interesting.”

The students were polled during lunchtime, recess, before class and after school.

“We’re here to announce our findings, hopefully before all the good stuff is gone,” said one student.

So, what was tops?

Well, the young students preferred Hide and Seek Care Bears to the new TMX Elmo.

Older students were most interested in gift cards and toy cell phones.

In a big change from 2005 there was little demand for Astros merchandise.

The kids who tested the toys said they did it to help adults in their Christmas shopping.

“Adults have a lot on their mind this time of year and sometimes really big hints experience a breakdown in communications,” said student Alexandra Lucky.

What was the price limit?

“While not wanting to appear greedy, we made our price limit a little bit higher this year. About the cost of a tank of gas,” said student Kayla Baird.

That tank of gas belonged to an SUV.

“We had a $70 price limit,” said Baird.