With the holidays approaching, adults are lingering in the toy isolate or combing the internet, keeping an eye out for the perfect gifts for the kids in their lives. For those searching for educational fun this year, a team of engineers has selected expert-tested toys that promote science, technology, engineering and math skills.
Every year since 2015, the Inspire Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering at Purdue University has put together a guide to skill-building, mind-stretching STEM toys. Previously, it has brought children into the lab to test drive the games and puzzles, but the Covid-19 pandemic and other factors have led the engineers to pick the toys on their own for the past three years. Several of the toy-testers are parents, and they’ve used that to inform their rankings, curating a select group of activities, all released in recent years, that can serve children in future STEM pursuits.
-Kids First Intro to Gears
Ages 3+
With Intro to Gears, kids can follow instructions to build four geared machines or use their creativity to make whatever they want. For the youngest children, simply placing the gears on the board and spinning them is an entertaining activity that will teach resilience: When a gear doesn’t spin, they’ll have to make some changes to the design to correct it. Older kids can create more advanced constructions by placing the gears at 90-degree angles from each other.
-Sensory Leaves Math Activity Set
Ages 3+
Sensory Leaves are a fresh take on teaching math to young learners. The set has various boards that children place leaves on top of, whether by matching a pattern or in response to a prompt. Parents can supervise children through these activities to reinforce learning. “It’s a great way to introduce young children to counting and sorting and categorizing and logical thinking as well,” Hynes says. “But I think what stood out…was that there were connections to science and biology.”
-Switcheroo Coding Crew
Ages 4-7
Switcheroo Coding Crew consists of an electronic toy car, with three colored shells that kids can slide onto the vehicle to turn it into different kinds of trucks. Challenge cards lead children through storylines that encourage them to complete a task in the game board city, perhaps driving to a certain location to help put out a fire. Kids press buttons to code the car to perform its actions in a particular order—drive forward three beats, then turn left, for example. The game builds patience for trial and error, and it encourages children to identify problems and find solutions.
-STEM Explorers Brainometry
Ages 5-10
Hynes refers to the Brainometry puzzle shapes as “Tetris blocks.” Though they’re not shaped exactly like the pieces in the famous video game, the triangles, squares, zigzags, L shapes, plus signs and T-shaped blocks of this set encourage the same sort of spatial reasoning. Brainometry also includes challenge cards that set criteria, like which patterns must or must not touch, for the structure a child is building. Kids can put together a structure that stands and balances or one that lies flat on the table or floor. Even at a basic level, Hynes says, stacking up the pieces can teach foundational spatial skills.
-Discover
Ages 5+
Discover contains all the tools a child needs to build fantastic structures: Just add cardboard. Kids can bring new life to old, discarded boxes using this set of safe saws to cut the material, a folding tool and 120 screws to fasten cardboard together into new shapes. From a favorite animal to a flower, to a life-size tunnel or playhouse, the possibilities are literally endless.
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