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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?"
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela
Paper, pencil, paintbrushes.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Man, I got a Rubiks Cube as a kid, and *hated* it, as I was absolutely unable to solve it ... Gimme something fun !
unremarkable bits of plastic... I had Lego when I was a kid too, and it was great - helped my imagination in a constructive way - no use thinking about spaceships unless you could put one together from little blocks.
Today, we have Lego mindstorm - robot lego with software controllers. For something that was enjoyable and improving back then, and enjoyable and improving now is pretty cool.
Don't know about modern stuff (which I know is what you asked about) and may not be within the age range (I really have a hard time envisioning age) but the classics like meccano and K'nex (if you don't like picking up billions of mini nuts and bolts) were great.
Looking back, I learnt a lot about structure (triangles, width to height ratios etc) and gear ratios just as a side effect of messing around.
I can't be the only one who as a kid one day realized that if you hook a small gear to a large drive gear.. the small gear turns faster! Then tried to make a massive tower of alternating large/small gears.. only to discover that when you get to the top.. you have a fast spinning gear that can barely drive the weight of it's own axle.
Nor the only one who tried to make a crane, only to realize that the second you attach a load, the whole thing crumbles .. seems pretty simple as an adult .. but learning that as much force is applied to the structure as the load was pretty neat at that age.
AND of course, eventually everyone builds a crossbow .. those elastics that came with K'nex were pretty damn sturdy.. making something that could punch a hole in a piece of paper from across the room wasn't too difficult. Then trying to come up with a trigger mechanism was great fun.. and more lessons on the whole force/structure thing.
Aside from "mechanical" toys.. there are also electrical.
Not sure of the age range, but when I was a kid my dad made me what was basically a board with a power source, some lights, switches, and some other odds and ends. It had contacts (bolts) and a bunch of alligator clips for connecting the stuff. I had a lot of fun playing with it, and I've seen commercial versions of this now.. so might be a good idea. Also rates high on the "learning without realizing" category.
If "unremarkable bits of plastic" make the children happy, what's the problem with getting them unremarkable bits of plastic and making them happy?
Not everything is about you, hipster. Try being the "fun uncle" instead of the "odd uncle who's always trying to make them into something they're not."
I actually still like the little plastic blocks. I think that's what started or at least cultivated many an engineer's interest in the trade. Just get them a box with mixed blocks and they'll keep it for their kids when they grow up. My parents gave me 1 small kit when I was young (back when they had less custom blocks - the newer series are actually going back to those roots it seems) and then whenever I got some cash or gifts for good report cards I would expand until by 16 years old I got a whole city that took up the whole attic.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
when he was six, my son loved the plastic Erector Sets. just had to show him how to build one thing, then he could understand the diagrams to build other things, and before long was making his own creations. Not like the razor-sharp metal erector sets of my youth (which I had at about 9 or 10), on which I'd occasionally cut myself open!
Perhaps I'm atypical, but I absolutely loved my "150 in one" electronic kit. Here is a pic of the exact same kit I had when I was 8. I built every project, and came up to plenty of my own little circuits. I don't know what the modern equivalent is nowadays - perhaps heavier on the digital / logic side?
Better known as 318230.
Thought-Provoking? Check.
Unremarkable bit of plastic? Check.
They'll be able to pick up and enjoy even after they outgrow their train/truck/homemaking fetishes? Check.
Won't have to pick out gifts twice a year after this? Check.
Lego is always going to be the obvious suggestion in cases like this. Not the pre-packaged Star Wars/Transformers/whatever licenced stuff, but a plain old box of bricks.
Alternatively, though this might seem a strange suggestion taken at face value, that old 1960s favorite Spirograph can be an interesting stepping stone into all kinds of clever thoughts about geometry/mathematics. Plus you get some pretty pictures out of it.
5-10 year olds are often very creative with "unremarkable bits of plastic". (Lego, for instance, consists entirely of unremarkable bits of plastic, while Meccano is unremarkable bits of metal and plastic.) A Rubik's cube on the other hand, while certainly interesting and stimulating, isn't actually very creative at all. Even cars, dolls, and trains are played with creatively and imaginitively, as children make up and play stories around them, and often lay out cities using nothing more than dirty clothes on the floor...
As said above, it's hard to go wrong with Legos.
5-10 is a huge range to generalize about.
On the lower end of the range, books are great. They're starting to read or reading more but probably haven't decided what kind of books they don't like yet. There are several modular marble track systems on the market, Some even integrate with the Duplo-sized bricks. Everybody enjoys these.
The upper end of that range will want to choose their own gifts. Finding out if they're into Nintendo DS or another specific system can narrow the choices in a helpful way.
Your tone speaks volumes. If "unremarkable bits of plastic" are what makes your nieces and nephews happy, stop being a douche and get them unremarkable bits of plastic. If you prefer not to engage in the social interaction called gift-giving, tell the parents just that and stop doing it. Really, parents know pretty well what makes their kids happy -- and a happy kid is a learning kid. No one will be any better off having received educational toys against their will.
That being said, Lego is bits of plastic and this is probably the best gift you can give. Provided of course they like playing with it in the first place. Three crates of the stuff carried over from my childhood and now my kids are playing with it every day. It's fun and educational and if you buy genuine Lego it's amazing high quality. But really, instead of posting anonymously on an internet forum, for the love of your family don't ask us but ask the parents!
As other have mentioned, there's a difference "unremarkable bits of plastic" and remarkable bits of plastic - like LEGO.
Or, you may get them an 80s home computer (Commodore 64 or similar). Hook them up with BASIC. That'll teach them logic, a bit math, programming and/or may scar them for life.
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.
A bigger Rubik's Cube? Rubik's Hypercube?
I have discovered that siblings get back at you when you get kids of your own.
All my kids will think of is LEGO, that's what they spend all their money on. Myself, I'm thinking of giving them an Arduino, a couple of motors, sensors and diodes and install Processing/Wiring on their computer - just to see what they'll come up with.
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
Capsela is the best toy I ever saw that fits your requirements. It consisted of transparent plastic spherical modules with various gears you could connect to build vehicles and tools of various types. My younger brother played with his set for years and now he's a mechanical engineer who builds advanced composites for Ford. You can't buy it new anymore, but there's lots available on eBay.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Blank paper and paint/crayons or play-doh is a great way to give a kid creative freedom.
Shuriken!
What, not thought-provoking enough?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
What about one of these?
http://www.cracked.com/article_18494_15-unintentionally-perverted-toys-children_p2.html
My new standby (although you can only really use it once per child) is a book. Two actually:
The Dangerous Book for Boys
The Daring Book for Girls
Check em out on Amazon, actually really interesting stuff. The gist of it is it's all the stuff that a well rounded kid should learn as they grow up.
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. ?
How about a game a bit more complicated than Monopoly? Start with games by Avalon Hill.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Buy them porn...When I was a kid, I found it to be remarkably educational.
Ask your siblings if there's a particular piece of furniture that the kids could use in their room(s), (coffee/play table, dresser, whatever), find a used one cheap, get a bunch of paint and decorative type stuff. Spend a day decorating it with them, and you're set. Hell, you could even attach Lego mats to a coffee table and tether some basic tools to it, if they're into that sort of thing. I tried something like this a few years back and it worked really well.
I cannot BELIEVE none of you mentioned the immortal game of CHESS...
APK
P.S.=> Why'd I note it? Ok - Chess is NEVER the same game twice, & demands thought, a LOT of thought, and it varies by opponent and the style they play/use! Since you asked for "thought provoking", I could not think of a better game than this from my personal experience (been playing since I was 8, & have played, literally, 10's of 1000's of games since)... apk
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Surprised no one has mentioned the magnetic ball kits, they're "all the rage". I prefer Zen Magnets: http://www.zenmagnets.com/ (for the following reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Tka4NUmUo). Of course they're probably a choking hazard, depending on age of the children. Maybe other Slashdotters have more sense than I...
Give them Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Bible for Children that leaves the nasty stuff in as though it were moral, and various Norse and other myth books.
At six I was already a strong atheist thanks to that combination on my bookshelf.
Yay for atheist parents.
My niece (turning 6 next month) had an issue with sitting still in pre-school and we got her some of those Leapfrog things. She's learning (and also learning to sit still) and is still entertained enough to handle long car rides without whining. It was so popular her mom buys her other items for the system as well. Our plan this year is to send her a gift card and let her figure out what she wants to buy herself, so she can start to learn the value of money/budget and still get the reward of whatever she's purchased.
Try "Steve Spangler Science" http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/ (Shameless plug - my daughter works there) Honestly - we've had a lot of fun with their products.
To this day, my husband still builds things out of K'NEX. Yes, still little bits of plastic, but they encourage spatial reasoning and imaginative creation. Even as adults, we still broke out the case of K'NEX and made some fun ornaments for our 30-gallon goldfish tank. We build robots for cat toys (example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfzixDTLvVU) and fun, practical organizational solutions for cabinets. Kids can do wonders in a sandbox-mode.
I would recommend Magna-Tiles, which my 4 and 2-year-old daughter love. http://www.amazon.com/Magna-Tiles-Translucent-Colors-100-pieces/dp/B000CBSNRY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290294910&sr=8-1
--- Pork is not a verb.
Consider a drum, xylophone, small guitar ... that sort of thing. Kids love shit that makes noise, exposing them to music is no bad thing, and it will drive your siblings crazy. Win, win, win. We bought my GF's nephew a drum for Xmas when he was a little kid; he's now in his second year at Berklee. It's probably not a direct correlation, but the exposure can't have hurt.
Time and attention from interested, intelligent adults.
Or they could end up working for FedEx or UPS.
On top of Lego, K'NEX are pretty amazing pieces of construction material. As a kid, I started training with the basic sets, then got into the "master" sets.
I bought myself a K'NEX set called "The big ball factory," and some other sets of spare parts. My computer geek / engineer colleagues came over one night for a few to many beers. Everyone had a plan one how to improve the damn thing. There were four folks working in parallel on different sections at once, and showed no intention of stopping, and lost all track of time . . . just like what happens when you do hard core coding.
My girlfriend quipped to the other girlfriends, that if the beer didn't run out, she would have to chase them all out with a broom. Most of the girlfriends found the behavior "cute", especially since with every improvement, one of the guys would run to his girlfriend, and say, "Look, Romy, at that thing that I just built!"
When the folks were leaving, one of the chicks said, "I'm glad that these toys are in your apartment, and not in mine."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Meccano is remarkably the best construction game ever made. It's not only about imagination and building things but also about learning how to use the tools, mixing them when neccesary and understanding physics (for example, why does this nut gets unscrewed when the motor is on) and learning real world building, and in later years, they should be able to fix their own bikes when they need to change the brakes, because they know the tools, how to use them and why are they to be used that way.
When I was a child in that age group (about 15 years ago), I got quite a bit of joy from Origami. Much like the Lego and K-Nex suggestions, it was something where you could start out with very simple designs, but as you got better, the designs could be more and more complex. Eventually, I started making my own designs, like many other posters did with their toys. The great thing about Origami, though, is that you can do it anytime, anywhere, so long as you have a simple sheet of paper. Or a leaf, or anything else flat and fold-able. Makes it easy to entertain yourself on the go, or to show friends something "real quick." The water balloons were awesome :)
You might take a look at Edmund Scientific ( http://scientificsonline.com/ ). They have a lot of science-oriented toys. When I was a kid, I was also fascinated by erector sets and Tinker Toys. As others have pointed out, not every kid is going to want or like educational toys. But it doesn't usually take long to figure out which is which. My grandson, aged six, when given a choice of toys, wanted a volcano kit. A trip to the observatory to see a large telescope, and a chance to look through smaller telescopes was the neatest thing ever. Conversely, I have another grandson who has little interest in such things, and is much more thrilled musical instruments.
I really liked Lego as a kid. I rather enjoyed trying to come up with something then trying to build it. I also really liked those electronics labs, especially if they made noise (no wonder I play with an analog modular synthesizer now). But really, if you live close by the best thing you can do is spend time with them, share your hobbies and interest with them, buy a telescope and teach them how to use it, show them Jupiter, the Orion nebula, the Andromeda galaxy. If they idolize you, as nieces and nephews often do, chances are they will take an interest in anything you show an interest in. Also, Thinkgeek (the evil store that wants all of my money) has some awesome stuff.
And having a war with Nerf guns is always fun.
Timecube. Four toys in a single toy box.
Good idea. They'll get used to living in a cardboard box at a young age.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How about the 30-in-1/60-in-1/160-in-1 Electronic Project Lab? The 60-in-1 was what got me interested in electronics as a kid.
Plus, if they like it, you can give them the next step up (the 200-in-1 or 300-in-1) for a gift later.
I ended up with two of the 300-in-1s, and I still open up the boxes occasionally when scrounging for parts.
- a pocket knife,
- a lighter and
- a paperclip.
Privacy is terrorism.
(At least, that's what my nephew is getting for Christmas.)
Boxes are indeed awesome. I remember when I was ten my family moved to a different state and I took many of the moving boxes and connected them end to end to create a huge labyrinth fort in the basement. The best part of which was a huge refrigerator box that I spent most of my time in, even used to sleep in that all the time. My cat liked it too.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
When I was a kid, my dad would often tell me that if I do well in school, he would pay for my college, and if I don't, he would buy me a giant shovel, the kind they use on the farm to move cow manure for my 18th birthday. He would also take me to my grandfather's farm every now and then, just so that I'd see those shovels getting used.
I never got the shovel. I choose the path which implied a six figure income instead. So one could say that even though the shovel never materialized, it was pretty thought provoking.
When I was young, a toy that I enjoyed was "Spirograph". It was a drawing set that constructs artistic and geometric figures from hypotrochoids (shapes constructed within another shape) and epitrochoids (shapes constructed outside of another shape). It satisfied my fetish for symmetry, which ending up evolving into a career in computer science. The toy combines art and creativity with mathematics. An explosive combination.
If you want to generate keen interest in the present, you need to combine the toy with fancy pens. Crayons, markers, leads, and pencils just aren't cool anymore. Girls will be insanely attracted to metallic pens (gold, silver, etc). Don't skimp out on the pens! Kids LOVE fancy pens. And get all the colors in the rainbow. You may need to spend a bit of money, since pens are expensive, but a Spirograph with awesome pens is a sure to win some love from them.
Mechanics and electronics toys are a bit too advanced for a five to ten year old. I can't wait to get my nephew into software or electronics, but I keep reminding myself that he is not even two years old yet. Legos are always the obvious constructive choice.
A bit more constraining than paints, pens, and papers, but my niece (who just turned 10) eats them up. She got the American Girl kits for "cootie catchers", for scrapbooking, for flower decorations, and for picture frames, along with a big 150 sheet pad of printed papers. She tore into the cootie catchers kit the second she finished opening her presents. Another hit for her was "decorate your own tea set" which she got for Christmas last year. Her younger brother is a fan of papercraft kits for dinousaurs and such.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=70_79&zenid=757ab93b0464ac4ea23f59c17bfbe540 Remember: The bigger the warning, the more fun it's going to be! Or you could buy the lil' rugrats a bunch of PVC pipe and some instructions on making a spud gun...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not exclusively though, as a side to the usual physical toy gift(s), donate a couple bucks to a charity on their behalf. A long shot, but it just might help them appreciate what they've got, difficult as that can be for a kid living on planet affluence all their lives. (this coming from an old hippie)
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
The most famous puzzle in Czech republic and Slovakia (in fact, even more famous than Rubik's cube) is the Hedgehog in a cage. It was made famous by a comic series and books written by Jaroslav Foglar. If you could get one, it'd make pretty unique gift outside of Czech republic and Slovakia (preferably together with the book trilogy Mystery of the Conundrum, The Shades Are Revolting and Secret of the High Vont). But I guess it won't be easy to get.
Nothing with batteries.
Batteries aren't implicitly bad, but the worst things are toys with a single button to push, that causes to toy to launch into an extended sequence of songs or actions. The response should be proportional to the action!
Chess is great if you have someone to play with, which can be hard if only one of them likes it.
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Get them a tool kit. One of those hand-held plastic trays with a hammer, a pair of screwdrivers (X and --), a jigsaw with some different blade types, two clamps of any small type, some sort of measuring device and - if you want to be extra fancy - a hand-operated drill. Add a bottle of wood glue and a box of smallish nails. A carpenters pencil comes in handy as well. My 5 yo daughter made a candle holder for her birthday, heart-shaped with nails at the edges to hold the candles after I told her I did something similar for Yule when I was 6. A little help here and there and before you know it they'll make their own 'toys' which are twice as much fun as those plastic bits mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Plywood, hardboard, those waste bits of wood you're left with after doing some construction all come in handy.
I used to live next to a carpenter from birth 'till about 7. He had this barrel with leftovers in his backyard toolshop which I was free to pillage. I was lucky.
--frank[at]unternet.org
and a cat to put in it.
No left turn unstoned.
If you're going along those lines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Just buy them what they want. I always hated it when my older brother bought me things for my birthday that I explicitely did not want. I even told him what I wanted and told him not to buy me what he thought would be suited best for me. Now we are both grown ups and he still buys me stuff I hide in my closet.
You don't want to end like this!
Seymour Simon http://www.seymoursimon.com/ is the Isaac Asimov of preschool and young children's science books. Children's librarians love him. You can find his books in every public library.
His hands-on preschool books are *very* good. He had one that showed kids how to build bridges out of different materials that you'd have around the house, like paper, blocks and clay, that taught some fundamental ideas of engineering.
The downside is that for younger kids especially, you can't just give the kids a book and expect them to follow instructions. You have to read the books with them and show them how to do things, which isn't a downside if you like to do things like build bridges out of clay, which I do.
Yo yos have been around for thousands of years. They are still easily available. Still bits of plastic, but enjoyable none the less.
For the SciFi fans out there, remember that Dr. Who's tool for measuring the strength of gravity on any planet was a Yo yo.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
If watching tv all day and eating ice cream makes them happy, then what's wrong with that?
Your post sounds like it may be vaguely sarcastic, but I'll choose to answer anyway.
Conditioning. The body and mind get conditioned to excelling at a very specific activity, and are less able to generalise for other things. There's not much TV time at school, so kids may get a bit irritable in that environment. Also add in a general rant about eating a variety of foods to give your body the best chance at getting essential nutrients.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
A company called Tekton bought the molds for the old Kenner Girder and panel sets and manufacture them in Boston. The best of the sets that would fit your needs for the higher end of your age range is the Girder and Panel Hydrodynamic Deluxe Set (Amazon has it here http://www.amazon.com/Girder-Panel-Hydrodynamic-Deluxe-Set/dp/B000PVVQMU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1290302783&sr=1-3 ). The company also makes the bridge set, which I have in it's original 1960's Kenner version. I have played with this set as an adult and it too makes an excellent choice.
kids like to draw, it encourages creativity. Give them a rollup fabric case for the crayons, and they can carry them and impress the other kids
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I second the cardboard box for little kids, my 2yo grand daughter has one with flaps cut out for windows and a door, she loves it.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"The problem with books is that if the parent is a religious fundamentalist type, you end up donating to the local circular file."
That only indicates that you insist on picking things that will insult the child's parents. The question was phrased by someone who wants to get what is best for the child, not someone who wants to insult the family.
Yes, it is inappropriate to give a child books with sexual themes. It is inappropriate to give a child books that belittle what the parents believe. Even if you worship at the Throne of Darwin, not everyone does. When in doubt, ask the parents advice. It will help you win in the long run. The child will reach an age where they make up their own mind. If you want to still be in the kid's life, then show a little respect.
It's the adult thing to do.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Fun video after annoying commercial.
http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-make-giant-soap-bubbles-10316
Let your kids help you mix the ingredients together. Might cost $20-$30 but I'm sure you and the kids will have lots of fun.
I've met a number of magnetic-sticks-and-balls toys, and Geomag is by far the best (of the ones I've tried.)
You can get really cheap stick-and-ball toys where an icosohedron is a really difficult and delicate thing to make.
The next step up was Magnetix. The magnets were much better than no-brand, and you can get panels (squares, pentagons etc.) with magnets at each vertex. However, the magnets can fall out of the plastic bits (which in turn makes them a swollowing hazard), the stick lengths are not sufficiently accurate, panels are hard to come by, and the magnets still could be better.
Geomag uses much stronger magnets than Magnetix, and built with much better precision. They also do panels in a much better way: there are cheap plastic panels which clip in between the sticks and balls to transform (e.g.) a 5-cycle of sticks and balls into a rigid pentagon. Although they sell sets without panels, to my mind you're missing at least half the point if you don't have them.
For example this is strong enough to pick up. By comparison the much smaller snub dodecahedron is extremely delicate and hard to make with Magnetix.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Do you like the kid's parents, or not?
Try spending some time with them. Most of my memories of my granddad are either with him showing me how to make stuff with the tools in his garage or him walking about carrying the dog we got him.
Of my 4 nephews there's only one big (3) and local enough to get much fun time with and he's happiest on the trampoline, in the park (though he's very gregarious) and being taught things - going anywhere new but not overwhelming such as the gardens or zoo makes for good material (though always be sure to be able to get them back to the car quickly because they tire like an epic sugar crash).
You might discover that they're not really all that excited about the unremarkable bits of plastic per se. Kids are extraordinarily creative and have a relatively empty canvas, us adults can't hope to recall how powerful our imaginations once were because now all our thoughts follow constructs.
When I was a child, I loved books (still do). Consumed the local public library in every town we moved to.
One of the most important book giving experiences I had in my life happened when I was in 2nd/3rd grade. My father ran a fast food restaurant, and some high schooler had dumped his science textbooks in the trashcan. My dad fetched them out and brought them home to me. One was physics (which led me to degrees in physics) and the other was chemistry (which was also a wonderful eye opener, and a great source of practical recipes for fun things like nitroglycerin; a friend of mine had an older brother who was a military chemist who liked to keep chemicals in the shed, so we actually got to make nitro).
Other great gifts I received were: microscope kit, telescope (but once again, the books were more important), Radio Shack 100-in-1 electronics experimenters kit.
Also great fun: wood burning kit (art), leather working kit (art), model rocketry kit (loved designing and launching own designs...learned lots about aerodynamics)
Frisbee --- spent many many hours for days on end in summer playing Frisbee with a similarly inclined friend.
The game of Risk --- spent days on a single game.
Oh, that Chemistry book? When I got to high school and actually took chemistry, we had the same book, just a newer edition. Even though this was only 1979, the publisher had already removed the recipe for nitroglycerin from the textbook. I brought in my copy to show how it USED to be. :)
Lego, Tinker toys, etc are indeed excellent gifts. For the somewhat older child, I highly recommend the electronic snap kits to show them the magic of electricity without the soldering.
I enjoyed Lincoln Logs, Erector sets, tinker toys and chemistry sets. In each case, my mom took them away because the parts were all over the house.
I would have enjoyed an electronics kit, but there were no transistors then. Not interested in Legos.
I also made things from sticks and stones and junk I picked up at construction sites. All us boys had home-made bows and arrows and slingshots and pea shooters, and we played with lead fishing weights and mercury.
So most of this stuff is dangerous and unfit for kids. Life is dangerous for kids too.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Most of this has probably been suggested already but here you go:
Books
Legos
Erector Sets
Chemistry Sets
Microscope
Amazing Magnets
Puzzles
Model Rockets (the small ones are cheap and you can have a lot of fun building it with your kids)
I had a 301 in one electronic kit as a kid (components on a cardboard surface, connected together with springs and wires) I wore the thing out.
---
If it stimulates their knowledge, creativity, or mechanical skills, it's a good educational toy, though it'd be a good idea to see what way they're leaning.
Stupid is as stupid dies.
Try Lego bricks. But not the fancy ones, just a whole bunch of the basic shapes. Or an Erector Set. These can only be beat by taking them to play outside.
There's several brands, typically sold in packs of 216. My six year old loved them, and they're also fun for adults who like math or chemistry.
Not monopoly, but anything on these lists:
Younger: http://boardgamegeek.com/childrensgames/browse/boardgame
Older: http://boardgamegeek.com/familygames/browse/boardgame
A lot of people don't realize that Erector sets are still in production, that was one of my favorite toys I got for Christmas when I was around age 10, though I wouldn't recommend them for ages much younger than that. I always loved it because they forced you to do a little more pre-planning and design before getting creative because you couldn't just pull the blocks apart when you wanted to make structural changes, you had to unfasten all of the hardware.
OEÉæÁÄZÝÈA OEÉæé_CX
It's not the choking, it's what happens if the swallow them. They're so powerful they can twist up the kids' insides and kill them. That's why you don't see those magnet toys on the market anymore...
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Christmas Gifts for a 16 year old girl
1. Tin Whistle
2. Games You Can't Lose by Harry Anderson
3. The Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
4. The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces (Wii)
5. Juon: The Grudge (Wii)
6. Sega Sonic Racing with Wii Wheel (Wii)
7. Samba De Amigo Wii with Wii Maracas (Wii)
8. Ace Attorney Investigations Starring Miles Edgeworth (DS)
9. Super Scribblenauts (DS)
10. Wii Points Card
11. The Bernie Mac Show Season 1
12. The Simpsons Season 6
13. Willie Wonka and the Choclolate Factory with Gene Wilder (to go with the tin whistle)
14. 8 GB SD card
15. 16 GB USB Flash Drive
16. Wii Component Cable
I took the shotgun approach this year.
I've done better when she was younger. I remember I got her a candy lab and the Korg Synthesizer for the DS. Still, a Tin Whistle (She already plays the cello) and Games You Can't Lose (Find the red card, it's totally not hard!) should keep her busy.
I still need to get her something for Kwanzaa though.
It's less boring than what I'm getting her Mom though, $300.00 for clothes and I Can Do Bad All By Myself [Blu-ray]
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
You're dad did a lot more for you then just spout pointless anecdotes. I always hate these stories, because they boil the brutally hard job of parenting down to false, romanticized nonsense. Kids are weak, easily manipulated and incapable of making intelligent rational choices. If you'd really been given that choice without a ton of guidance and support (as your comment implies, BTW), you'd be shoveling shit right now.
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I get the kids a Barnes and Noble gift card. They ALL love to go get books ( I was afraid they'd get something non book related ) and they all have their tastes.
Try it. Reading is never a bad gift.
Its just hearsay, but I've heard time & time again that young kids would rather play in large cardboard boxes, than the toys they came with. And at one point Walmart was selling boxes with dotted lines that showed where to cut them in order to make a cardboard box house.
Buying a bunch of large cardboard boxes and a roll of duct tape actually isn't a bad idea (IMHO). It's basically like a life-sized Lego set that they can play inside of. Just make sure they have an unused room to set up in and that they're the creative sort.
As you said they will eventually outgrow trucks/homemaking. Help them enjoy it properly in the meantime. get a Dora links Doll. you know they want it!
why not introduce them to some really high tech like LOGO. Or maybe even a 10 year old could run assembler in freedos. Before their first uniphonepod device/implant which will have 1TB of RAM, you could introduce them to the concept of memory management.
Although I didn't hate it, I did lose interest in the Rubik's Cube for the same reason: as a kid I had no chance of solving it. Rubik's Magic (tiles with rings on them) on the other hand is solvable for a kid, probably closer to age 10 than to age 5 though. I don't know if they still sell those. It is rather fragile, so if the kid is wild or very clumsy it would not be the best gift.
I also liked a pentomino puzzle. With some persistence a kid has a decent chance of solving it. We also had a tangram set and a book with dozens of figures you could try and duplicate. I played with it for quite a while until it became too easy for me.
So when it comes to puzzles, it's important that it is neither too hard nor too easy. And it does take a slightly obsessive personality to enjoy puzzles: someone who decides it's too hard the first time he/she gets stuck and then stops trying is not going to enjoy it.
Geomag is a system that has balls and sticks, where the ends of the sticks contain the magnets. You can build all kinds of geometric shapes from them. It's popular with my friends (geeky 30-somethings) but my little nephew also likes it.
The magnets are pretty strong, but not as extreme as some other magnets. The box says age 4+.
Zoob http://infinitoy.com/zoob/ Make DNA!
Two slamdunk thinking toys for kids are:
Marble Race and Lego Creationary.
All types of playing cards, a standard deck, and also decks like Uno.
I loved pentominoes and had several tangrams. There are several other offbeat games which stimulate the young mind, such as:
- Amazing Labyrinth http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1219/the-amazeing-labyrinth
- Triominoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triominoes
- Mahjong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_Jong
They can be played with whatever skill level you choose, even with a 6-year-old. Our youngest kid loves all of them, but is not keen on tangrams.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Rush Hour is a great puzzle game from Think Fun toys. My five year old son loves it.
does not happen by giving a gift, but by interacting in the right, interest- and fun-provoking way. If you just give one of the gifts recommended here and those kids are not used to this kind of stuff and kind of fun, chances are that your gift will land in a corner after 5 seconds never to be taken up again.
On the other hand, nearly everything can provoke thought if *used* in the right way and if you communicate with the child in a way that does spark his/her interest without you being overly instructive.
You do not state the exact age of the children, but that is very important to make a judgement from afar. Do not underestimate the thoughts that a simple piece of plastic or wood can inspire in child under the age of 10. In fact a simple toy can be much more thought inspiring than a game computer or something else that is highly complex and specific.
You can give them socks and underwear. That will surely provoke thoughts of murder in their minds. I know it did in mine.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Making up their own minds assumes that they have access to alternative views.
Emotions! In your brain!
Apparently simple games that require strategy rather than luck. Example: four-in-a-row, where you drop colored disks into a 2D matrix.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I've ordered one of these for my kids for xmas:
http://www.amazon.com/Eyeclops-03548-Bionic-Eye-SE/dp/B0026G8SE6
It would certainly have appealed to me, anyway. We'll see! I'm anticipating a lot of DADDY DADDY LOOK AT MY SNOT
My kids enoy playing Blokus; a slightly brain twisting board game quite a lot. Moreover the rest of the family enjoy playing it to and she can join in with them.
Other things she enjoys? Monopoly, card games (get a book of family card games) pencil and paper games like 'Sprouts'.
While Legos are the obvious choice, model kits (airplane / spaceship / etc) can be pretty engaging. I had many fond hours putting together and painting Fighter Jet models. 5 years might be a little early to start on that though, more suited for 7+.
I'm so glad someone already mentioned Capsela - I must have occupied so much of my youth playing with it. It would be even more awesome in todays modern age of superior plastics and rechargeable batteries.
While it's a bit limited compared to something like Mindstorms, Big Trak is programmable, and I really lusted after one in my youth. I never got one though. Now they are available again, for the same kind of price, which with the benefit of inflation, makes them really rather cheap these days.
Rubik's cube never provoked any thought in me beyond "this is boring. I bet these stickers come off". Buy some art supplies. Feed their creativity. Maybe then if they become programmers later, they'll be creative programmers.
I can think of no better gift than a telescope. I still remember the day my father gave me a simple Newtonian telescope in the early 80s. It has shaped and directed my inquisitiveness, curiosity and love of science ever since.
Think Geek
Seriously!
If you can't find something of interest there that's both fun and thought provoking, you probably aren't going to find anything anywhere.
8==8 Bones 8==8
For example I have a 3 year old autistic grand daughter who loves picture books.Last year I went to B&N shopping and came up with a book with pictures that seemed to move as the pages were turned. She still hasn't put it down. An 8 year old grand son joined the Boy Scouts and was taking it very seriously, so I bought him a Boy Scout Knife. Some of the grand children are much younger and I find that Think Geek as a first stop shopping place.
Know the kid and shop intelligently!
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
When I was about 10, my best friend and I used to go hunting around the trash in the back of a small factory a few blocks away and come home with metal offcuts that we made into pseudo-shuriken. It's a wonder no one was seriously injured, but kids are immortal, after all. This was the 1960s and we both are female.
Earlier posters are right in that making stuff is the most fun for kids. Well, that and blowing shit up. It's amazing what you can do if you disassemble fireworks and re-make the contents into better bangs.
I got a chess set when I was about ten. I learned the moves and when a chess-club was created at school, I joined immediately. Here I got an opponent that was a couple of years older and who beat ten times out of ten. This is not very enjoyable when you are ten years old so I dropped out and have not played chess since.
Lego on the other hand... I got my first Lego bricks when I was about three years old and I played with Lego at times almost daily until I was about sixteen. I built anything from Lego: planes, spacecraft, cars, you name it. I still have all my Lego from back then and I'm at it again at the ripe age of 54 - I've got two Lego Mindstorms sets.
This is not to belittle chess, which is indeed a very challenging game. But you run the risk of putting the kid in a situation where he loses all the time which is not very good for that kid's self confidence.
My opinion? See above.
You could always get a 4-d bseball and play catch. The thought-provoking part is when you accidentally throw the ball with a velocity like (p != 0) and watch as the ball shrinks into a tiny point and disappears. Then, when it bounces off of something outside of your 3d-space and suddenly appears somewhere else, shrinking back from a point to a ball again, see if you can catch it! The inertia due to the last element of the velocity 4-vector will pull part of your arm out of your 3d-space. Have fun trying to get your arm back fully within your 3d-space! Great way to hide hairy arms, though.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
That's right - rockets. The old model rocket hobby is actually alive and well. They still have all the classics, but as they get older, the rockets get bigger and more complex now - with multiple recovery stages, and more and more can be fitted with digital cameras.
Once they hit 7th grade, if they really like it, there's a national competition (TARC -
Team America Rocketry Challenge, rocketcontest.org) that has several thousand dollars in prize money.
Regardless, there's a lot of excitement in launches. They even have "micro" versions now, which can be flown on small fields - even in moderate backyards.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Meteorite fragments! Thought-provoking, and under $20. I love walking into a classroom, putting one in a kid's hands to pass around, and asking them what they think it is. That they are common blows their minds. At the risk of mentioning my own column, I go into in depth here: http://www.science20.com/daytime_astronomer/gifts_sky
A.
A few that may work for all generations.
Lego.
Music Instruments.
Hammer, Saw and nails.
Board Games.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Asking the parents' advice ahead of time is great advice. You might have thought that Harry Potter was a story promoting values of loyalty and courage to do the right thing, or that Kiki's Delivery Service was about perseverance and respect for elders. You didn't realize you were trying to convert their kids to witchcraft, or that any music that doesn't talk about Jesus is actually Satan's siren song.
It would be nice if it went both ways. See, while I'm sensitive enough not to gift the Golden Compass trilogy, if I say anything about the picture book of Bible Stories featuring the crucifixion and narrative explaining that the Flood was God's way of drowning all the "wicked people," then I'm the dick, because they're just trying to save my kid's soul.
But yeah, C.S. Lewis is probably something we can all agree on.
We're big fans of Magna-tiles, both for us and the children.
I loved them, and then I got them for my son when he was 9. It was awesome sharing them and generated a good love of science...
You sound unimpressed with "stuff", so don't buy "stuff". Buy experiences. Take them to the zoo, or a children's show, or a good hands-on science museum. It'll cost the same, they'll get more out of it, and there'll be that much less plastic sitting around your sibling's house.
We stay away from accessories for the most part. No vehicles, buildings or weapons. We do get generic clothes and props for the stuffed animals. My 10yo son will play for hours developing elaborate scenarios of rescue and infiltration. My twin 7yo girls can play all day with a dozen plushies. They even read books to them.
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
Agreed, all of those. I was given a basic carpentry kit (bits of which I still have over 40 years later) when I was a kid, and ended up making violins and lutes.
But another idea, which might be something rarely seen nowadays: Meccano. When I was a kid, I was given a few basic kits, which were supplemented by more that my father had owned when he was a boy in the '30s. Lego is cool, but Meccano is beyond cool.
Plastic? Go for metal! Suure - Mechano might doom them to becoming engineers - but at least they'll be REAL engineers, not software engineers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometer
Hours of fun outside and they are cheap as dirt.
Give him Legos , on of the top most educative toys. same goes for mecanos or other sets of building games . stay away from construction toys that make you build the exact same thing over and over again, with legos you can build tousands of stuff with a single generic bucket. and now there is INDIANA JONES themed lego OMG , i must have it
Lego bricks seem a good first place to start if you want something that let's a child think and be creative.
Best of all, they're fundamentally just unremarkable bits of plastic, so they shouldn't set off any Education Toy alarm bells. :)
(Do try to bear in mind, though, that every time you call them "Legos" a Lego fairy is melted down and recycled into a Coke bottle top.)
Or any barbies really; my teacher barbie had a noble prize in some science. Having been a little girl and interacted with lots of little girls, I can say from tons of experience that dolls push girls creativity to all sorts of awesome places. I learned to sew by making my barbie's dresses out of old tights and I learned to follow instruction manuals by putting together all my barbie kitchens/bedrooms/etc. (a skill that came in handy most recently for installing a real stove/dishwasher/over range microwave) 'cause my brother and dad couldn't be bothered to read the instructions and therefore messed up.
Let them build the fort, then draw the fort.
Most of the fun of legos is playing with the thing you built. I used to build houses with a full set of furniture as set pieces for the soap opera my lego pieces were always embroiled in.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Need I say more?
-- Cheers!
"The problem with books is that if the parent is a religious fundamentalist type, you end up donating to the local circular file."
That only indicates that you insist on picking things that will insult the child's parents. The question was phrased by someone who wants to get what is best for the child, not someone who wants to insult the family.
Yes, it is inappropriate to give a child books with sexual themes. It is inappropriate to give a child books that belittle what the parents believe. Even if you worship at the Throne of Darwin, not everyone does. When in doubt, ask the parents advice. It will help you win in the long run. The child will reach an age where they make up their own mind. If you want to still be in the kid's life, then show a little respect.
It's the adult thing to do.
"Worship at the Throne of Darwin" doesn't exactly show an example of being adult.
I think we can all agree that most religions are mistaken. Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, Jesus' miracles - I think you'll agree that at least three out of the four do not exist. There is no one religious view that reach the majority of children. That means that most children are being taught lies. In my book, that's child abuse. You're saying that the "adult" thing to do is to allow child abuse - in the form of indoctrination - until the child is old enough to "make up their own mind" - which they don't. Most people believe the same thing as their parents. The chance of getting the abuse to stop - the children to stop re-doing the abuse on their own children - is to start when they're children.
Oh, and by the way: "The Throne of Darwin" indicates to me that you disagree with "evolution". I contend that I have never talked to a person that disagreed with modern evolutionary theory. Everybody that disagree disagree with something else - because they do not understand what modern evolutionary theory claims.
If you want to be consistent with evidence and believe that God made the Earth in six thousand years and that evolution had no place in it, there is only one way to do this: You have to believe that God created the Earth so that it was supposed to look like it had been made by evolution. And he could have created it five minutes ago, with fake memories in you.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
> Parents today often use writing/drawing as calm down methods, and the kids start looking at it as punishment.
The fuck? My nieces _love_ drawing and painting. Matter of fact, one of them explicitly asked for a coloring book for Christmas.
I agree that books are your best option. There are so many great books and they will challenge kids into thinking while making sure they will always like books as they grow older. Also, Lego or similar.
Meccano (the steel one with the brass bolts), 300 in One electronic kit, Chemistry set, hand tools and a workbench, Modeling clay, "Magic Box": a shoe box filled with construction paper, glue, string and rubber bands, a few magnets and brushes and waterpaint. Minibrix (the ancestor of those brick contruction set. Anything that can be disassembled and then have to be ressembled. Left-over parts from car repair jobs.
Neocubes are small spherical magnets (about 5mm diameter). You buy about 256 or more for about $12, and you stick them together to make whatever you want, constrained only by geometry and the rules of magnetism. This is some of what you can make: http://picasaweb.google.com/damox99/Neocube# Find them on ebay with search terms like 'neocube', 'sphere' and 'magnetic'.
I'm rather sad. My childhood essentially WAS Legos and Contrux. Contrux were a beams-and-collars style snap-together assembly toy. Most pieces were a couple of inches long. You could build BIG. There were wheels, pulleys -- making things move was easy. According to Wikipedia: "Construx was discontinued in 1988, briefly revived by Mattel in 1997, and then discontinued again."
At any rate, I'm in the book trade, so here are a few thoughts:
I second.
I read a lot of books growing up, and I filed a few gift books myself in "the local circular file". I wanted something intellectually stimulating, or at least entertaining. Not every kid wants something preachy or sexual. Check with the parents. If you slip it past them, it will make somebody upset with you, possibly the kids themselves.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I'm not exactly an adult, so I don't know how long I'm going to use them. However, I would recommend anything that let's them build stuff. e.g.Lego is always good :) Don't know for sure, but I think it can also be good to get them a fancy kit or two that uses fairly regular blocks, just so that they can see how easy it is to build something with those blocks themselves. Then get a large amount of various regular blocks. It's best though if you decide on a single main type of building material to use (for larger constructions). Only thing necessary is plenty of ideas.
Good luck =D
Yup, I agree, it's total crap and will permanently warp any child who reads it.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Does sex described in a paragraph between two teenagers count as sexual? I read/studied books like that in English lessons (I can't remember many titles, but I remember reading this when I was 12-13, as we were going round the class reading a page each and I ended up reading the first sex scene and feeling embarrassed).
Some of the best books I read were suggested by one of my mum's friends (an English teacher). One I remember was Angela's Ashes. Another had a European boy in Israel, I can't remember the name. Both were good for showing other cultures.
(Both are also "sexual" by the above definition. Except for many fantasy and sci-fi books, I can't remember any modern young-adult fiction I read that wasn't, although I did mostly read fantasy books.)
I've seen lots of thought-provoking toys last time I visited the Science Museum in London. Check them out: http://www.sciencemuseumshop.co.uk/
As a kid... I loved legos... other creative things along those lines... Erector sets, lincoln logs and those big cardboard bricks... actually the big "bricks" were awesome cause you could build more lifesized things. Or, if they have snow in the winter, I spent way too much time making snow forts with a plastic "snow brick" maker. It was basically a cinderblock sized hollow rectangle with a handle for you to easily raise off of the packed snow brick. Chemistry set or microscope with some pre-made slides are more "sciency" if you want to go that route. Finally, I might say a car-track set... I spent many an afternoon setting up a matchbox car track with a ramp at the start and timing my cars to see which was the fastest or could jump the farthest off a ramp at the end. Yes... I was definitely a nerd-kid ;)
Consider a good board game (not Monopoly or Sorry, etc). Stragegy games promote higher thinking skills and there are a lot of good games out there now. There are games specifically geared towards children (e.g., Forbidden Island and Gulo-Gulo) as well as games that can be enjoyed by children but that involve strategies that take time to master (Carcassonne and Zooloretto are a couple of good choices). The downside of games is that someone has to play with them - And that's the real answer, the most inspiring gift you can give to children is the time to play with them - regardless of what the toy is.
http://www.education.com/gift-guide/ has some education related gift ideas.
When I was a kid, my grandfather always used to get me a new cast-iron puzzle for Christmas every year. You know, one of those things where you have to get the ring off the weird-looking metal shape, and it takes hours and sometimes weeks to solve them? I loved those things. Your kids might too.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence is false.
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