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Colorful Construction
Clixo Rainbow Pack
Marble-Powered Computer
Turing Tumble
Coding Car
QUBS Cody Block
Lego Robots
Lego Spike Prime Robot
Anyone who has ever watched a toddler methodically take apart a Tupperware drawer should know that many children are natural-born engineers. Your only job as a parent is to nurture their creativity … and clean up the mess afterward. Between us—product reviewer Scott Gilbertson, editor Adrienne So, and I—we have seven kids. This, honestly, is the most fun part of my job—calling in STEM toys for my kids and I to test together and recommend to you. It hardly feels like work at all.
Wrap up a few of these STEM toys (also called STEAM toys; we love you too, Arts!) and books for your future scientist to blow up, burn up, or dismantle. Hopefully, they’ll thank you for the early encouragement when they’re older. Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, including Our Favorite Subscription Boxes for Kids and How to Build the Lego Collection of Your Dreams.
Updated November 2023: We added Clixo Kits and Kanoodle Pyramid, and updated prices throughout.
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Photograph: Clixo
Colorful Construction
Clixo Rainbow Pack
Construction kits are compelling no matter your age, and my entire family found Clixo’s colorful, versatile, snap-together magnetic pieces irresistible. You can build three-dimensional shapes from these flexible pieces by connecting the magnetic ends and bending them the way you want (my youngest made a cat, my teen made a crown). These durable and washable pieces stack neatly to pack away. We love that you don’t need a flat surface to build because it means you can play with these kits anywhere. If you prefer a themed pack, we also liked the Mars Rover Pack ($45) and the Ocean Creatures Pack ($45), and both sets feature glow-in-the-dark pieces. The kits are recommended for kids aged 4 and up. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Upper Story
Marble-Powered Computer
Turing Tumble
Turing Tumble is a wonderful way to teach kids coding fundamentals. It combines the simple pleasure of marble runs with a beautifully illustrated sci-fi comic book packed with challenging puzzles. The board resembles a pachinko game, and you have to slot in different pieces to divert the blue and red balls and get the required pattern at the bottom. My 9-year-old spent hours working through the puzzles, reconfiguring this marble-powered computer. As the challenges grew tougher, the whole family joined in to find solutions. Well-designed, satisfying, and rewarding, this is a good pick for kids 8 and up. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Qubs
Coding Car
QUBS Cody Block
Teaching basic coding concepts to young kids is a challenge. To do it without a screen is even tougher. But QUBS has come up with an elegant solution. These beech wood blocks look like buildings, but each has a symbol relating to a command (turn left, turn right, U-turn, repeat the last command, stop, record path, play path). When kids put the magnetic top on the red car, it begins to drive. Using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, the car reads the commands on the blocks. There’s a lovely guidebook that includes stories and activities, but the best thing about this Montessori-inspired wooden toy is that kids can dive in and learn how it works through play. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Lego
Lego Robots
Lego Spike Prime Robot
Lego Education’s Spike Prime building set is a complete DIY robot-building classroom in a box. Literally. Prior to the abrupt rise in distance learning several years ago, Lego marketed this primarily to schools. It comes with its own lesson plans, but don’t let the seriousness fool you—my kids love this set and went from never having used it to programming their own robots (using the drag-and-drop Scratch programming language) in a couple of afternoons.
Lego keeps updating Spike Prime too. Recently it released a new series of plans for bots that track exercise and help kids learn about motion and energy transfer. —Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Sphero
Make Music From Colors
Sphero Specdrums
Sphero acquired STEAM toy company LittleBits in 2019. Sphero’s toys are always so cute, I want to eat them whole; I particularly liked the Sphero RVR ($279). But for sheer aesthetic pleasure, it’s hard to compete with the Specdrums.
These tiny, pocketable rings turn all the colored surfaces around you into a potential musical instrument, and turn anyone into an amateur DJ. Use the app to assign sounds to colors or vice versa. When you tap on different colors, you can hear the different tones. Anyone from toddlers on up can play with these and find them vastly entertaining. You can also buy a one-ring set for $25. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Sphero
Coding Ball
Sphero Bolt
The Sphero Edu app is packed with computer science lessons and activities for different age groups. Bolt has an 8 x 8 LED board on top, various sensors inside (compass, light sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer), and supports infrared communication. My wife is a teacher and uses this in the classroom to teach basic coding skills, giving students (9 year old and up) challenges like navigating a maze. She says many kids grasp the concepts much faster than they might with a book or screen, because they can see the Bolt moving in physical space. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Amazon
Endless Building Fun
Valtech Magna-Tiles
The return on investment with Magna-Tiles staggers me. It’s been years, and at 6 and 8 years old, my children can still occupy themselves with these for hours. Translucent Magna-Tiles click together to form both two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects. Younger kids can make a house with a backyard and fences, or ice cream cones. With an older kid, the sky is the limit—or, rather, your credit card is, since there are wheelbarrows full of expansion sets you can buy. My daughter can currently build a full village in an afternoon for her stuffed animals.
If these are too pricey, there are alternatives that work just as well, like Picasso Tiles, which are $20 for 60 pieces. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Playshifu
Check Mate
PlayShifu Tacto Chess
Tacto uses physical pieces to turn your iPad, Android, or Fire tablet into a game board. Tacto Chess teaches the basics, from how the pieces move to strategies for victory. The animated app boasts friendly voice acting and stories to draw kids in. There are also chess puzzles to solve and a move predictor, and your child can play against AI or another person. Both my kids (9 and 12) have enjoyed some time with this, so it works well for different ages and abilities, but it was a little fiddly to get pieces to register on the iPad Mini, so a larger tablet is advisable. Other Tacto packs cover dinosaurs, classic board games, coding, lasers, and electronics. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Chronicle Books
Underwater Vistas
The Brilliant Deep
Chronicle Books’ gorgeous picture book tells the story of Ken Nedimyer, an environmental scientist, live rock farmer, and fish collector who founded the Coral Restoration Foundation.
The book weaves together details of Nedimyer’s biography with facts about coral reefs—I did not know that corals spawn like fish do—and luminous underwater landscapes and depictions of scuba diving. It makes environmental preservation and following your passions look both doable and fun. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Osmo
Table Tiles
Osmo
The Osmo tablet accessory and gaming platform for kids merges the physical and digital worlds in a way few toys manage. Your kids can tackle solving puzzles and playing word games with blocks and tiles you move around on the table in front of them. The Osmo hardware captures what they’re doing and translates it into actions on the screen.
Osmo recently launched several new titles, including a math-related dragon game that’s been a hit in our house. Give the hardware requirements a close look to be sure your iPad or Fire tablet is compatible. —Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: Amazon
Construction Capers
Geomag Glow
My entire household found this magnetic construction set irresistible, and there has been a new 3D structure on the coffee table every morning. The kit comprises glow-in-the-dark magnetic rods (crafted from recycled plastic), steel spheres, and plastic bases in different shapes. You also get storage boxes to put everything away in. There’s a guide in the box with a few suggested structures, but creating your own is a big part of the appeal. There are sets of various sizes suitable for kids 3 and up. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Represented Collective
Women in STEM
Represented Collective Legendary Card Collection
These beautifully illustrated cards depict legendary women who made significant contributions to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. There’s a focus on Black and Indigenous women of color, because they are woefully underrepresented in most STEM discussions. Stylized portraits are combined with interesting brief biographies that recount their journeys and highlight their achievements. There are also thoughtful questions to provoke conversation and debate, which makes the deck a useful teaching resource for teens. But it is on the pricey side.
The makers, the Represented Collective, also offer puzzles for younger kids. We tried Nakira’s World Nature Hike ($24), a jigsaw with two pairs of decoder glasses and a puzzle book. Youngsters will enjoy examining the nature scene, and the booklet has links to culturally relevant reading and offers an introduction to Ojibwe vocabulary. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Crayola
Color Chemistry
Crayola Color Chemistry Set
Everyone who has come across a Crayola crayon has probably melted one, whether accidentally or on purpose. Crayola’s Color Chemistry set includes enough brightly colored Crayola ingredients for 16 activities out of the box, and up to 50 with common household ingredients. Exploding volcanoes and colorful quicksand are just a few of the eye-catching experiments that you can look forward to trying. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Wonder Workshop
Remote-Controlled Robot
Wonder Workshop Dash
This super-cute robot looks like it rolled straight out of a Pixar movie. With a big, expressive eye atop three balls, it zips around with real personality, which helps it successfully combine play and learning in a way that every STEM toy aims for but many fall short of. Dash has lived with us for several years now. It’s a durable toy that works on a simple level like a remote-controlled car, but it also ties in with various apps to play games, solve puzzles, and create programs. Lego connectors for Dash’s head add to the creative possibilities. Wonder Workshop also offers some optional accessories. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Particula
A Twist on a Classic
Particula GoCube
No one needs a Bluetooth-enabled Rubik’s Cube, but once you get your hands on a GoCube you probably won’t be able to put it down. Smart sensors inside the beautiful, glowing cube connect to a companion app on your phone and sense where each block is positioned. You can learn algorithms and strategies that will help you get your solve-time down. And if you give everyone you know a GoCube, you can also stage live competitions with friends and family! —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Kinetic Sand
Sand Castles
Kinetic Sand
My kids love this moldable sand and have happily spent countless hours over the years making tabletop structures. It behaves like wet sand and never dries out, so you can shape it with your hands or use tools and molds to make castles. It comes in many colors and clumps together easily but doesn’t stick to your hands or surfaces. While it’s generally easy to clean up, it’s a good idea to confine play to a tray or table and supervise your kids, or you may end up picking tiny bits of pink sand out of your carpet. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Amazon
Unlimited Books
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Kids
No parent has ever complained that their child was reading too much. You might think that Amazon’s Kindle Kids a regular Kindle Paperwhite, but it includes a year’s subscription to Amazon Kids+ (formerly FreeTime Unlimited), a two-year replacement guarantee, and, yes, a cute cover.
Not only does Amazon Kids+ give your child access to more than a thousand kid-friendly books in both English and Spanish, as well as Audible titles, I found it easy to whitelist even more free titles (free books!) from my local library using Amazon’s parent dashboard. You can also highlight or look up difficult words, or add them to a Vocabulary Builder tool. Testing this Kindle is the first time I’ve gotten my 5-year-old interested in longer chapter books, so I’d give it a ringing endorsement based on that alone. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Amazon
Real Coding
Let’s Start Coding: Ultimate Coding Kit
Many STEM toys dumb down programming tasks, and that can limit their usefulness. The kits from Let’s Start Coding reject that approach, offering hands-on time with electronic components and challenging kids to dive straight in and create programs in C++. The Ultimate Kit includes 23 separate parts, including an LCD screen, speaker, LED strip, various sensors, and more. There are more than 100 projects to embark on, with example code that kids can tweak and helpful, if somewhat dry, walkthrough videos.
My kids required some encouragement and supervision with this, and I think the suggested age of 8 years and up is low. Perhaps more important than age is a genuine interest in hardware and coding. But there’s satisfaction in successfully controlling hardware components. A Windows, Mac, or Chromebook desktop or laptop is required to use the free software. Younger kids may be better starting with a smaller, more focused kit like Code Rocket ($70). —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Amazon
Unlock the Rocks
Rock Tumbler
The best toys are the ones that aren’t toys at all. This year, my children became extremely interested in fossils and geology. We’ve been taking walks in the woods or at the beach, putting promising specimens in our pockets. We often keep the rock tumbler running for weeks (outside, because it’s a little noisy), changing out the grit and watching as rough rubble eventually reveals itself as sparkly quartz or agate. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can also throw in a rock guide and plan a rock-hunting trip. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Amazon
Colorful Clay
Polymer Clay
Part of exploring the world is feeling the world, digging in the dirt as it were, but if you don’t have a yard or live near a park, you can bring some of that same spirit of exploration inside with polymer clay.
This is the mold-and-bake clay you might have used growing up. It just has a fancy new name. The things your kids create might not always hold up, but that too is a learning process—after her doll’s table fell apart several times, my daughter asked if I could reinforce the legs with wire.
Other fun sculpting options include modeling clay ($10) and good old-fashioned Play-Doh ($21). —Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: The OffBits
Odds and Ends
The OffBits: UnicornBit
Most kids love construction kits, and the OffBits combine special components with standard hardware bits you might have lying around the house, like nuts and screws. Each kit boasts a special assembly tool and a robot, creature, or vehicle to build. My daughter enjoyed putting the UnicornBit together, and kids are encouraged to get creative in their approach and adapt designs to suit them. The only roadblock we ran into was that some pieces were tough to connect, requiring some adult muscle, and others felt loose, but the end result was charming. OffBits offers various kits (mostly for kids ages 6 and up), but with small pieces and tricky assembly, we advise adult supervision. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Amazon
Fantastic Stickers
Paint by Stickers
I know what you’re thinking: Painting with stickers sounds kind of lame. But trust me, kids love these books. There’s something about the balance of fun and meticulous concentration that draws children in. These are also a fun and mess-free activity for traveling with younger children. If your child isn’t a dinosaur fan, there are plenty of other options, including unicorns, undersea animals, bugs, and more. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Nintendo
Creative Cardboard
Nintendo Labo Cardboard Kits
If you already have a Nintendo Switch, you must try Nintendo Labo (9/10, WIRED Recommends). These clever kits composed of corrugated cardboard sheets and stickers must be assembled so you can play related games with your creations on the Switch console. Beyond the challenges and mini-games, you can dip into the software and learn how each kit works. You can even set up your own rules, reprogramming your creations in the Toy-Con Garage by dragging and dropping blocks to create simple inputs and outputs. We like the Vehicle Kit best, but there are several alternatives. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Kiwico
Yeasty Goodness
KiwiCo Science of Cooking: Bread & Butter
We’ve tested many gift subscription kits, but my 5-year-old declared this baking kit to be the most fun of all. We’ve talked about yeast, watched carbon dioxide fill up balloons (“We’re eating fungi farts!”), talked about the different states of matter while making butter, kneaded dough, and finally, had cinnamon toast for a snack. It requires a lot of parental supervision over a lengthy period of time, but I also liked that she now has her own separate measuring cups and tools and can quit stealing mine. —Adrienne So
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Photograph: Amazon
Tetris-Style Teaser
Kanoodle Pyramid
Can you fit these Tetris-pieces into a three-dimensional puzzle board? My 11-year-old loved this logic puzzle, though she found the 2D puzzles too easy. Luckily, there are 100 3D puzzles that require spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills to beat. They get tougher as you progress, but never too hard. This puzzle kit is recommended for kids aged 8 and up, but some younger kids could have fun with it, too. Kanoodle does also offer a bunch of other brain teasing puzzles specifically for younger kids. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Amazon
A Crayon Replacement
Sargent Art Tempera Paint Sticks
Tempera paint sticks are like oversized crayons, but instead of wax, your kids smear tempera paint around. Don’t worry, it dries quickly (in about a minute and a half), and it’s easy to clean off most surfaces. It’s all the fun of painting, but there are no brushes or other mess to clean when your kids are done. There are sets of all sizes. We started with this 12-piece set but have since expanded to a 32-color set ($28). —Scott Gilbertson
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Photograph: PlayShifu
World of Learning
PlayShifu Orboot Earth
Budding adventurers can learn about countries around the world with this interactive globe. Using a companion app on a tablet, your child can scan the included globe and get augmented reality pop-ups that trigger fact files on famous monuments, animals, cuisines, and more. My 9-year-old had some fun with this but felt the goofy voices were more suitable for younger kids. (PlayShifu recommends it for ages 4 to 10.) The globe feels cheap, and the AR pop-ups tend to clip through it, but this is a novel way to learn more about the world. Shifu offers two alternative globes covering dinosaurs and the planet Mars. —Simon Hill
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Photograph: Ozobot
Coding Cutie
Ozobot Evo Entry Kit
It’s amazing how bleeps and bloops, colored LEDs, and cute animations lend personality to a tiny robot. The Ozobot Evo is like a mini R2D2 your kids can control. There are a couple of ways to program the Ozobot Evo. It follows black lines drawn on paper and changes the color of its lights to match the colors drawn. Blocks of varied colors also act as codes to trigger animations, change speed, or perform another action (a workbook explains). Ozobot is an easy, screen-free introduction to coding principles for younger kids. Older kids can try Ozobot Blockly, a typical drag-and-drop coding language that lets them build simple programs quickly.
My 10-year-old enjoyed playing with this for a while, but I agree with our original review that the Ozobot Evo would work best in the classroom. Ozobot offers handy teaching resources, and the Evo makes for an engaging problem-solving activity for small groups. —Simon Hill
Simon Hill has been writing about tech for more than a decade. He is a regular contributor to WIRED, but you can also find his work at Business Insider, Reviewed, TechRadar, Android Authority, USA Today, Digital Trends, and many other places. Before writing, he worked in games development. He lives… Read more