18 Terrific Toys for Grade School Kids

Navigate your big kid's winter wishes with our top picks for gifts.

By Allison Sutcliffe November 8, 2017

Just like that, your tiny tot isn’t so tiny anymore. And her toys are growing up too! In fact, her holiday wish list has gone from simple Duplos to 1,000-piece LEGO sets, cuddly stuffed animals to augmented reality toys, and plain old racecars to buildable electronic sets. Navigate your big kid’s winter wishes with our slideshow featuring hot toys for school-age kids below.

Circuit Cubes

If hands-on is how your little engineer likes to build, put Tenka Labs’ new Circuit Cubes at the top of your shopping list. Each of the three building kits includes a battery cube, motor cube and LED cube, the basic building blocks of this versatile new toy. By stacking these blocks in different configurations, and pairing them with creative project templates, tinkerers can make moving vehicles (with the Whacky Wheels kit), a telescoping flashlight (with the Bright Lights kit) or even an artsy carousel (with the Smart Art kit). But that’s just the beginning. Once they figure out how these little cubes work, the sky’s the limit. Our favorite part? It’s gotta be that they work with LEGO building blocks to add even more dimension to play time.

Find it online, $59.99
Ages: 8 & up