I was wondering if anyone might have any good gift ideas for 5 to 7 year olds?

Whenever Christmas comes around, my first thought is always that this is a good opportunity for us to add to the fun learning opportunities in the house. Honestly, I sometimes wish we could give them more gifts throughout the year (wouldn't tell them that, though). Yes, I know we can stimulate them with cardboard, scissors and markers and we do, but I also love the toys. I'm a bit of a big kid at heart.

Our boys love most building toys (Lego, Magformers, straws and connectors, zoobs), science kits, and reading. If anyone wants book ideas, I have lots.

Other than those, what are some of the educational toys that have been the biggest hits around your house?

Snap circuits, a good microscope, and board games. Life is the favorite board game right now but I just got Wildcraft and Prime Climb. I'm sure we'll play those this weekend and I'll try to get back on to review them for you. My boys are 6 and 9.

I second things like building a circuit board, microscope, science kits, legos ect if the child is interested in the areas of science and technology. Such provides hours of both knowledge and a medium to let imagination run wild.


FWIW for me my ideal toys at that age were things to take apart like radios and hair dryers. My mother would also throw in an analog ohm meter and a few 9 volts lol.

I second the snap circuits, legso, Keva wood tile kits, etc.

Also, art supplies can be a good gift. Decent quality ones may be more useful for a kid who is interested in art - some of the kid stuff is fine, but some are just junk and might frustrate a child rather than foster their interest.

The gift idea thread from about this time last year may be: Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat (2015).
The 2014 thread is here.

The Davidson Database also has a list of Gift Ideas for Eager Young Minds.

Other threads with gift recommendations include:
- Book/toy suggestions for science-y 7 year old,
- drawing books,
- Chess Set Recommendations,
- Science kit recommendations,
- games for preschoolers,
- Board games for little kids,
- Cricket magazine,
- Graphic novel recommendations.

This post mentions some ideas and considerations for charitable gift-giving.

Happy for the suggestions so far, especially the idea of old electronics to take apart!

I love toy recommendations that come with a parental endorsement. I love lists too, but I get a little lost with them (I want to get everything recommended). Speaking of parental endorsements, do any of your kids have a Rokenbok set and if so, do they like them? They look great, but I'm wondering whether they worth investing in considering that we already have tons of Lego?

And I also have recommendations: Our boys love ThinkFun logic and brainteaser games - Rush Hour, River Crossing, Shape by Shape, Hoppers. The SmartGames games are also great (Camelot Jr., Camouflage North Pole, IQ Twist, etc.). They're great because they're individual games, so they can actually play quietly. We often bring one or two out when things get a little too crazy around the house, and it works wonders.

And to your point on charitable gift giving indigo, I love that as well. We do a fair bit of volunteering and always involve our kids, and we also want to do something special at Christmas. One thing I've done with friends in the past was to make Christmas stockings for the homeless - we stuff new socks with things like deodorant, small sized shampoo bottles, chocolates, etc. We might repeat that one this year if there's still an organization that delivers them.

My daughter received a subscription to a Tinker Crate (http://www.kiwicrate.com/tinker) for Christmas last year. Even though the recommended age is 9-16, and she was only 8, all of the kits have been perfect for her. If you don't think your kids are quite ready for a Tinker or Doodle crate, they also sell a Kiwi Crate subscription that is geared towards 5-8 year olds.

I love this gift because she gets a new project in the mail every month, which is exactly the "more gifts throughout the year" that you wanted. We wrapped the first box up and put it under the tree, and she received another one in the mail each month after that. We are doing the same thing again this year.

My DS loves building stuff so we got him the ZomeTool (http://www.zometool.com/). It was a hit. You can start with a small kit and move up to the larger ones if your kids like them. We've also gotten him Brain Games books since he loves solving puzzles. He once played Bananagram with a group of kids and adults and he loved it. So it is on our gift list for this Christmas.

Wildcraft game is a hit!

Take a look at UGears - may be advanced for a young child but will appeal to the child in you :-)

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

Came across this Engineering Gift Guide from Purdue, very nice collection on building engineering creativity for a broad range of ages.

https://engineering.purdue.edu/INSPIRE/EngineeringGiftGuide/2016-Engineering-Gift-Guide.pdf

We have enjoyed our purchases from Planetizen. Kids' page here.

I have a few decent sources for used books, so I got a mix to bring down the cost a bit. And yes, we've tried the Notebook of Doom and though they liked it, they found it a bit too scary. We've been working on it, but they get scared at the slightest thing in books or tv/movies. Haven't tried Data Set yet, but it would probably be well-received.

And by the way, the books have been a huge success! DS6 (almost 7) announced that he preferred the book advent calendar over the Lego City advent calendar. I almost got teary, I was so happy.

As for the suggestions for gift ideas, they're all terrific. I particularly love the Engineering Gift Guide. And that reminds me, DS6 has been engrossed in their Snap Circuits Jr set for the past week and has been whipping things together without looking at the instructions. Maybe it's time to get them a more advanced set!

Today's crowd-sourced parental endorsements become tomorrow's lists...
the lists available today are the collected parental endorsements of the past.

Hello, new to the Forum. My 9yo has recently decided he wants to go into the field of Rngineering and requested a circuit board as the only thing he wanted for Christmas. He liked the snap circuit set we got him but explained kindly that he was looking for something where he could work with the �insides� of the items. He doesn�t just want to snap a hints together he wants to see how the wires and chips are out together to make the speakers and lights and fans. So I guess the snap circuits are a little too basic. Any suggestions out there? I�m not sure where to direct him.

Take a look at Arduino, and maybe Raspberry Pi. Also, Amazon has a ton of small circuit kits you can build with some basic soldering and wiring.

X2 on Raspberry Pi and Arduino boards.

Also a soldering iron, solder and some some put-it-together-yourself kits may be fun.

Look at RadioShack.com and sparkfun.com for some ideas - the latter site is a lot more than just an online store.

Good luck and have fun!

Just wanted to give a recommendation for ManCrates. I gave a Puzzle Crate to DS for his 19th birthday. The puzzles were a lot of fun involving codes, visual puzzles, math, and some flexible and creative I thinking. Of course, opening the crate was better than the gift inside the box, but isn't the box always the best part lol?