Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gift ideas?

When my kids were young I could always find one Christmas gem at the lakeshore learning website...pattern blocks one year, something else another year. They loved stuff from there.

Magnatiles. They are a bit pricey but more than worth it for the amount of quality play time we get from them.

IO blocks (Guidecraft) - we got them for aftercare at DS' school and seen kids up to 8-9 years old playing with them.

Superfight game (the card game - great for kids who like to debate/argue)

The 3Doodler was a hit but be sure to buy the cleaning tools.

Also Raspberry Pi and Arduino controller boards are cool.

Older geeks will enjoy a soldering iron and some kits for tinkering.

I stand corrected - the tools came with it - by cleanup, I meant cleaning the jams.

When close to the end of the strand it often woukd get stuck.

We also got the doodle pad - find it at craft stores too.

Extra nozzles are cool too.

Sometime later I found a great book at Michael's while looking for more plastic at Michael's.

You can get it here...

Link

Another gift that DD got a lot of mileage from was a cheap point and click Nikon cool pix from Costco.

Now she has a smartphone so it has been rendered obsolete but she used it to make videos and take all manner of photos. There is something enchanting about being able to record anything when you are a young child.

One of the things Santa will have in his sack this year is a tripod for her smartphone so she can make puppet animations - we tried and it just doesn't work by hand... :-(

Great suggestions all around! I think we've decided to do a book advent calendar. I learned about it last night and I don't think I can resist. And besides, if we're going to have an addiction, books is not a bad one to have. I'm so excited!

And just for the fun of it, here is my list so far:

1. Cleopatra in Space, book 3
2. Jedi Academy, book 1
3. Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom
4. George's Secret Key to the Universe
5. Mal and Chad, Food Fight
6. Bedtime Math #2
7. Lego Chain Reactions
8. Kids Cookbook
9. Secret Coders
10. Mad Libs Junior
11. Looniverse #1
12. Who Is Bill Gates?
13. Basher Science: Technology
14. Zach Gets Frustrated
15. Usborne See Inside Science
16. How Airplanes Get from Here... to There!
17. Human Body Theatre
18. DC Comics Secret Hero Society #1
19. Chicken Squad #1
20. Jon le Bon, The Brain of the Apocalypse
21. Cleopatra in Space

Wow, when I put it into writing, it seems a bit much... But again, is there such a thing as too many books? Hmm.

Ooh, we did the book advent calendar two years ago! It can get a little expensive, so every second day I substituted in some second-hand magazines that DS enjoyed, which I had bought second-hand at about 10 cents per issue.

RRD--have you tried the "Notebook of Doom" series yet? Or "Data Set"?

So far (DD12):-

Dr Who Shakespeare Notes (she loves time travel)
Neil Gaiman's American Gods (she loved Pratchett)
A couple of Ugears models (she is ethnically 50% Ukie)
A nail polish advent calendar which she will get on 12/1
iTunes vouchers