Thought-Provoking Gifts For Young Kids?

An anonymous reader writes "Societal norms and my sibling's procreative endeavors have put me in the position of having to buy gifts twice a year for young children. What makes them happy are unremarkable bits of plastic. They already have innumerable unremarkable bits of plastic (from their parents and grandparents). My preference would be to get them gifts that challenge them to think creatively (or at least to think), which they'll be able to pick up and enjoy even after they outgrow their train/truck/homemaking fetishes. Beyond the Rubik's Cube, what thinky toys from your childhood are still in production? What new thinky toys have you discovered that work for the 5–10 age range?"

Comments

How about

[Dyinobal]

How about books? I know it's not the latest high tech doodad but I would of loved to have gotten more books as a child.

Re:How about

[Ihmhi]

Seconded for books. Don't forget legos as well! Don't just buy the theme sets, buy the sets with tons of blocks and random pieces so they can get creative. I probably spent more time with my legos than anything else.

As for books, some recommendations appropriate for the double-digit ages:

• Where The Red Fern Grows
• The Giver
• Call of the Wild
• Animorphs/Goosebumps series
• Anything by Roald Dahl
• Harry Potter series
• Gemini Game (if they're techy sort of kids, really good story!)
• Anything by Jerry Spinelli (Crash, Maniac McGee, There's A Girl In My Hammerlock

You could probably pick up a few months (or years, depending on how fast they read) worth of good children's books on Amazon for less than the price of a game console. Plus books aren't laden with any of that silly DRM nonsense!

Re:How about

[jamesh]

Books are great, and young kids are quite happy to read the same book over and over again but as they get older they'll tend to read it once or twice and move on. It might sound corny but maybe you could take the kid(s) to the library once a month/fortnight/weekend/whatever if they live close enough to you and your schedule allows it? A bit hard if you live hours away but spending time with an attentive adult is the next best thing to cheap plastic crap :)

My bike, books, lego, and computer are the only material things I can really remember spending a lot of time on as a kid. We got RC cars (which need charging all the time), motorbikes (which need fuel and adult supervision), and all sorts of other things but those 4 are the ones I really remember and that were always there and ready for me to play with (except maybe the computer... stupid computer hogging siblings!)

Wood blocks

[Moof123]

Seriously, right after Legos, a big heap of good old fashioned woods blocks were the best. Building towers, cities, etc is the best.

Giant refrigerator sized cardboard boxes too.

Get them a playhouse, and not a plastic one. Draw up plans, precut the pieces, and have them help you assemble it. Playhouses are a blank slate for childhood adventure to paint upon.

Give them the materials and the time....

[CCTalbert]

Some of the most fun I had as a child was when I had the raw materials to do something- and conversely often the biggest frustration was a lack of materials.

Wood, rope, large cardboard boxes, tape, etc. Strangely rope seemed to always be in short supply. Hammer and nails. Much learning occurs when idle hands are armed with stuff :)

And actually I think the best gift you can give is time. One of the best times I had with one of my young nephews was building a swing- just your simple board and two ropes off a tree limb swing. We discussed how big the seat needed to be- actually measured some assorted butts!, how big the rope needed to be, we measured and cut, learned about knots, tied the whole thing up, and it got a lot of use for years. The designing, acquiring materials, building, overall a simple but enjoyable project with an immediate return, and a template for many other projects.

Later projects were a potato cannon, tree fort with crows nest, for-real play house (including wiring in outlets, windows, insulating, basically a small guest-house)... we spent an afternoon pulling cat5 to all the rooms in their house and putting in a router... soldered up a pong game and a couple other odd electronics kits. Next up may be firearms if I can get the parents to buy into that :)

Time, encouragement, and patience are incredibly valuable and are remembered. Not easy if they're far away or too busy with all the distractions kids have these days. Maybe my entire comment is out of date in today's world. ?

Re:C=3P or box

[icebike]

Or, for really young kids, buy something really cool and BIG for yourself and give the kids the box. They will have more fun making that into a fort/dollhouse than all the paints and paper in the world.

Parents today often use writing/drawing as calm down methods, and the kids start looking at it as punishment. But at least these are creative devices, rather than passive entertainment devices. Kids bore quickly. Let them build the fort, then draw the fort.

Nothing with batteries.