Holiday shopping season is officially upon us and the infamous “Black Friday” deals have begun to roll out. Why are we talking holiday gifting at all before Thanksgiving? Well for one, many companies have released their Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals early this year to help limit crowds on Friday.
Secondly, if you’re spending more time at home or are in a state where there are shopping limitations you might prefer to do your shopping online and this means dealing with increased shipping times. And if you’re shopping for any of the kiddos in your life, finding a toy that is just as fun, as it is educational, is hard enough without taking into consideration the price. So to help you get a head start we’ve put together a list of our favorite STEM toy deals for every age range!
Fisher-Price is known for their toys for kiddos of all ages but they consistently hit it out of the park with their baby toys and this smart piggy bank is no exception! Great for helping babies get started with their counting as early as 6 months old.
As your little one grows up, you can use the Smart Stages technology and start phase two to introduce the bilingual feature and more advanced content. The coins help teach the child animals on one side and numbers on the other and the piggy bank knows 40+ sing-along songs, tunes & phrases so it’s sure to never get tiresome for them to use.
If your toddler is a little older, consider LEGO’s My First Number Train to help broaden their math knowledge. This train set features a buildable locomotive, three wagons, blocks numbers 0-9, two children figures, and a cat figure. There are so many ways for kids to build, drive, and learn with this set it truly helps reinforce learning early number recognition to get them on the right track. Plus at under $20 it’s a steal right now!
Osmo has long been one of our favorite STEM toys at KellyMitchell particularly for their coding kits. While you’ve heard us talk about their kits for older kids before, we’re excited to see such a great Black Friday deal from them on their preschool-aged starter kit.
From reading to number recognition to shapes and even social-emotion skills, kids will learn it all while engaging with on-screen characters as well as their physical game pieces. The kit works with either an iPad or Fire tablet and while it’s usually over $200, at $121 right now it’s a great option to gift this holiday season.
Who doesn’t love Disney’s Frozen series? And if a child in your life can’t seem to ‘let it go’ this gift is a no brainer. Kano has created a coding kit in conjunction with Disney that allows the child to build a sensor that can detect 3D hand motions. From there they connect code blocks and get to see the JavaScript as they work.
They’ll be exposed to loops, logic, and variables. Once the coding is complete they will get to use their new frozen to make snowflakes or build their own ice palace, all with the wave of their hand. There’s over 10 hour’s worth of constant play so we are sure this a great addition to the toy chest, especially for parents working from home. Compatible with Windows 10, Mac & iPad, and Amazon Fire Tablets.
LEGO Boost Creative Toolbox 17101 Fun Robot Building Set and Educational Coding Kit (Ages 7-12): $127.99 (orig. $159, 20% off) (Age 7-12): $127.99 (orig. $159, 20% off)
It won’t be surprising to many that LEGO made our list, not once but twice. They basically originated the category of STEM toys before STEM was a thing with their build it yourself sets. And the only thing better than a LEGO set is a programmable LEGO robot! With 847 LEGO pieces, kids can not only build but rebuild their robot into 5 different multifunctional models, including Vernie the Dancing Robot, the Guitar4000, Frankie the Cat, Autobuilder, or explore with the M.T.R.4 (Multi-Tooled Rover 4).
This award-winning toy is a great gift for kids and teens alike and all models work with the LEGO BOOST app. Compatible with selected iOS, Android, Kindle, and Windows 10 devices with BLE 4.1 and newer. Compatible with select mobile devices. If you’re really trying to win the best present award (not that it’s a competition) you can also get them the LEGO City 60194 Arctic Scout Truck or LEGO NINJAGO 70652 Stormbringer and use the LEGO BOOST app to combine with their kit and control their own creations.
The Makey Makey Classic has won many awards, from being named one of Consumer Reports’ “Best Tech Toys of 2014,” “Best of Toy Fair 2014” by Popular Science, and was even a finalist for Toy of the Year 2016. So unsurprisingly, they RARELY go on sale, so even though it’s one of the smaller discounts in our roundup, it’s definitely worth it.
The first setup takes seconds so kids are going to be able to get it running quickly on their own. From turning a banana into a touchpad or making your own musical instrument there are 1000s of ways to use the Makey Makey to connect your world to your computer. Just plug, clip, and play with no software to install and it works with Mac and Windows you can feel good gifting this to any of the kids in your life.
Don’t worry we didn’t forget about the teenagers in your world. While KiwiCo offers kits and science projects for a wide range of ages and interests, we were really excited to see this chemistry kit. With four different projects, they’ll learn about electrochemistry, combustion, chemicals that glow, and vortexes.
While the kits retail for $149.95 and it’s 30% right now, if you were to buy all the chemistry lab kits separately they would cost $170 so really you’re getting almost a 40% discount!
It was only a matter of time before the Rubik’s Cube got an update and the GoCube is just that! This smart cube connects to your phone or tablet via the app and can track your moves in real-time. Using the app will help you learn how to solve it in a fun and interactive way or even battle it out with other cubers around the world.
As you get better, you’ll be able to track your stats, progress, and analytics so you can continue to enhance your skills. There’s even a game section too if you want to mix it up. This brain-teaser is sure to be a hit with kids and adults alike which is why we just had to include it!
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