Top 10 Brainy Gifts for Kids
Looking for some unique gift ideas to give your kids this holiday season? Brainy gifts keep your child learning and building thinking skills in a way that is fun and engaging. Check out this quick roundup of 10 of our favorite games, puzzles, toys, and more for the kids on your list:
Paint By Sticker Books
These fun activity books build visual processing, executive functioning, fine motor, attention, and other critical learning skills. You can find them at various levels of difficulty and with varied subjects to keep your child interested and engaged!
How-to-Draw Books
These are great for budding artists or hesitant draw-ers alike to help build confidence, learn how to follow instructions, build visual processing skills, and more.
Keva Blocks
These may seem like basic blocks (and they are), but the challenge cards, puzzles, machines, and structures you can build with them make them a great challenge for all ages! Grab a set and help your kid build logic, executive functioning, visual processing, problem solving, spatial awareness, and more great skills.
Legos
Yes, they’re a classic. And yes, Legos are still great for kids of all ages to boost creative thinking, visual-spatial awareness, and more important thinking skills! There is a wide range of options including basic blocks for building all the way up to programmable robotics sets to keep kids (and even adults!) of all ages interested and learning.
Subscription Boxes
Not a big fan of games or toys as gifts this year? You could opt for a subscription box instead to spread out the intrigue all year long. With options targeted for all ages and interests, there are plenty of opportunities to keep your kids learning. Some top-rated subscription boxes include:
- MEL Science (different ages and science topics available)
- KiwiCo (STEM/STEAM-focused crates for all ages)
- OwlCrate Jr. (book-based boxes for kids, with additional options for teens, too)
- We Craft (for younger kids ages 3-9 to get them thinking creatively and artistically)
Gravity Maze
This fun puzzle can be a team effort or independent activity to practice problem-solving, attention, logic, and visual-spatial awareness skills!
Tall Tales
This can also be a solo game, a family game or a party game to engage any number of players! Grab a story card (no reading required) and random pieces to craft a creative and fun story. This game builds creative thinking, processing speed, executive functioning, attention, verbal expression, and more great skills!
Rush Hour
This is a great STEM game that engages logic skills, processing speed, memory, visual processing, attention, executive functioning, and more. Arrange cars on a grid according to a pattern and move them systematically to clear a path for one vehicle to get out! (Have a 5-7 year old? Check out the junior version, too!)
Scramble Squares
This unique take on puzzles makes players practice visual discrimination, executive functioning, processing speed, attention, and more skills!
Kanoodle
Solve puzzles and create 2-D or 3-D patterns to match over 200 puzzle challenges! This game builds attention, visual processing, executive functioning, logic, memory, processing speed, and more.
The Brainy Gift That Keeps On Giving
What better gift could you give your child than easier reading, better focus, stronger memory, and faster thinking? These are skills that pay off for LIFE, whether in school, relationships, or the workplace.
Virtually every client walks away with improved confidence in addition to stronger brain skills to help set them up to become more successful in whatever they do down the road!
If you’re looking for an “experience” gift or something unique to suggest to a grandparent or family member this year, consider signing up for a cognitive skills assessment. This test can help you identify strengths & weaknesses and get the best path forward for your child to succeed in the rest of the school year!
