Best STEM toys for a fun AND educational Christmas

**UPDATED FOR 2023* Continue reading for the best STEM toys for 7-11 year olds this Christmas. STEM is a real buzz word in education at the moment, standing for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths – these are deliberately grouped because they’re essential for the development of critical thinking, creativity and problem solving skills. But when it comes to toys – STEM toys are the ones that get the minds buzzing! They’re the kind of toys that involve experimentation, creativity, building or collecting things and they’re the BEST kind of toys for Christmas because they’ll keep kids playing and discovering the whole year long. I’ve rounded up the best STEM toys for Christmas 2023 that are perfect for gift ideas for boys and girls aged 7-11 years old. Check out our environmentally friendly toys below too! 

Best STEM toys for Christmas 2023

mBot Neo

Makeblock is a leading brand of DIY robotics and they’ve created the easy-to-build mBot2 will inspire kids to learn, grow, and play in limitless ways. The robot is fun to build and takes around 45 minutes. Afterwards, you can easily start App control driving, voice control, piano playing etc. through the Makeblock App. The mBlock coding platform supports block-based coding and Python coding. Equipped with a powerful and versatile CyberPi mainboard, Encoder Motor, WIFI, Full-Colour display, and more than 8 different Sensors the mBot Neo can be coded to move, carry lego – the possibilities are endless! Kids don’t have to have coding experience, they can still learn coding step-by-step with mBlock as there are add-ons such as ‘The Coding Project Box’ series which offers illustrated step-by-step guides and crazy-fun gamified coding projects. For kids aged 8+, the mBot is the ultimate kids robot and is a fun way to learn coding! Buy the mBot here and get $10 off with the code SAVE10!

Tobbie – the Self Guiding Robot

First up is a super cute robot! I love that it’s called Tobbie- suits him perfectly! But the best thing about this robot is you build it yourself! Once built, it can roam around or follow you and interacts with you a little like a pet! He has his own emotions and even sounds alerts if you forget to play with him! With fun sounds and effects and LED eyes, it’s a robot that’s very satisfying to build and great fun to play with.

Ages 8+  – Tobbie is a perfect gift for those that are inquisitive or budding engineers!

Boson Kit

If you have a child that loves coding or is interested in computing – then the Boson Kit is the best STEM toy for Christmas. The DFRobot Boson Kit is a set of coding-free electronic building blocks for young inventors. What I like about it is the Boson modules are divided into four kinds, easily identifiable by colour: blue ones are for inputs, green for outputs, yellow for functions, and pink for power. There’s no coding or soldering necessary to use Boson — just connect the blocks together, and you’re good to go. What’s also great about this kit is it’s a perfect starter kit and there are an impressive variety of other kits that you can add as the child becomes older and more experienced. The other selling point of Boson is the compatibility of the modules with other things. You can connect Boson modules to Lego bricks, screw them onto things, place them on a fridge with magnets, or velcro them to a wall! Boson modules can even make paper move! Boson is much more reasonable than other coding kits I’ve seen on market and starts at £54 and can be used for children aged 6+. The possibilities with Boson are endless and I really love the youtube videos available which spark imaginations with fantastic ideas that you can create with your Boson Kit.

Best STEM Toys for 7-11 year olds

Connetix Tiles

With multiple connection points and strong magnets, the Connetix Tiles pack will inspire children to use their imagination to create zooming ramps, car tracks, long roads, colourful carparks, towers and houses. Connetix is the ultimate open-ended toy, it grows WITH your child as they learn, and their play becomes more complex. The Connectix magnets are our most played with toy for our 4 kids and it’s perfect for sparking kid’s imaginations for kids of all ages. Our 12 year old and 4 year old construct all sorts of complicated structures together with these magnets so they’re great for sibling play.

SpyX Micro Spy Gear Set

This Spy Gear set is perfect for mobile Spy Surveillance! It has a utility belt with 4 micro tools, a spy light, invisible ink pen decoder to write secret messages and a motion alarm. Our kids had fun spying on each other with the motion alarm which detects movement or vibration. This makes a great gift idea for kids who love playing detectives! You can buy your spy kit here.

The Space Journey Subscription Box by Geojourney

The Space Journey subscription box is a fabulous STEM present idea. It gives children aged 4-10 everything they would need for a successful space mission. They get their very own mission log book, astronaut passport, photos, stickers space suitcase and  an interesting fact card, as well as a cool new souvenirs such as space sunglasses or real astronaut food every month.  We’ve trialled other subscription boxes and this one is very high quality with a gorgeous suitcase to keep everything in but it also makes a brilliant play item for their explorations. Every month, kids receive a personalised letter from their fluffy friends like Geo the owl and Atlas the pup, and each month they will learn about a different planet. Our kids loved the solar system map and loved stamping the astronaut passport and updating the log book with information. This is a really fun way to learn about the solar system!

Super Spiral Marble Run 

This is a marble run like to other! Firstly, it’s well built, wooden design and of excellent quality. Secondly, it takes skill and precision to set up which makes it a fab STEM toy as it develops your building and creative skills. The Super Spirals marble run from HAPE will ignite your child’s imagination thanks to its unique features, such as its watermill, rotary tower and drawbridge. It’s a lot of fun to place numerous marbles into the rotary tower and twist the flag to release them one by one! This set even includes a xylophone rail that plays a tune as marbles run over it, two double-sided spiral twists, plus four special control blocks to randomly distribute marbles. This is a gift that will last for a long time – our 8 and 11 year old love it! 

Build your Own Microscope

For kids over 8 – a build your own microscope with fully functioning lens is a perfect craft to keep kids busy. This is made out of recycled cardboard so it’s a sustainable toy idea for Christmas! Buy yours here. If you like this then you’ll love these extra ideas with this educational toys gift guide.

Science in Wonderland

This is a lovely little Science kit for kids who love nature and outdoor exploring. Find out the science behind some simple nature principles. Science in Wonderland is safe for young children as there are no chemicals, just science fun in your very own magical fairy garden playset. There are 5 magical experiments; make a kaleidoscope in a tree stump, make a ladybird’s wings flap with solar energy, make a fairy dance, make flowers bloom in seconds and create magic colourful butterfly wings.

The Curiosity Box

If you’re looking for a fun Science subscription box for kids of all ages, then hands down The Curiosity Box wins. It has 4 activities and 2 collectable items such as conical flasks and molymods that can be used in future boxes and for future experiments. The experiments included were not the usual run of the mill experiments either, we made our very own bone and a gruesome glowing mixture with raining and floating drops of blood! The box contained real chemicals such as Iodine which really wowed my little scientists and there were plenty of oohs and aaahs when we changed the colour of the liquid with Iodine. This box kept my little inquisitive bunch busy for a whole afternoon (they are aged 4-10) and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone as a thoughtful gift idea that will keep on giving throughout the year!

Strictly Briks

If you need a present idea for a child that like building or lego, then Strictly Briks are the perfect idea. They develop a child’s imagination by allowing them to build vertical buildings with lego – like a garage or house – the possibilities are endless. Strictly Briks are compatible with all the major brick brands such as Lego and Megablocks so they are a brilliant addition to any sets of these bricks that you may already have. The base plates can be stacked vertically to build some amazing creations, you can also make your own toy storage from them and use them to display figurines and models. The base plates can be stacked using your own bricks or you can use Strictly Briks spacer bricks which are available to buy as part of other packs. A great STEM toy for little builders!

Beaker Creatures Liquid Reactor super Lab Set

This is a Science Kit for younger kids and involves dissolving the ‘bath-bomb’ like pods (extra sets can be purchased for this when they run out) in the reactor to reveal collectable creatures to identify. It’s a lot of messy fun and comes with a proper ‘grown up set Scientific Lab’ so younger kids can feel like real chemists even though it’s also colourful and chunky for little hands! Once the pods are used up, you can continue the experiments with other household items or continue with your own bath bombs. For our full review of the Super Lab – see here…..

Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters: The Questioneers Book

This is a great STEM gift idea for a 7 year old. If you’ve never come across Rosie Revere before – what a delight this book is! It’s a perfect book for aspiring engineers but also gets across the important message of ‘perseverance wins out’! Rosie Revere dreams of becoming a great engineer. She creates wonderful gadgets and gizmos – but only when no one is watching! Not only an amusing book, Rosie Revere is beautifully designed, making clever use of colour, pattern and white space; children will love exploring all the wacky details of Rosie’s imaginative creations on every page. This book is a big hit with my daughters and it’s brilliant to see a fantastic, witty, strong girl character in children’s books!

Astronaut Lamp

If it’s space your little ones like – then they’ll love this Astronaut lamp. This a great STEM gift idea for kids aged 7-11. It’s perfect for any space themed bedroom and gives a lovely glow for reading. The astronaut is walking on the moon and much like a real astronaut, this funky light has a lifeline attached to him whilst he does his moon walk – in the form of a cable that attaches to the mains! A lovely stylish gift for kids (or adults!) of all ages!

Boomtrix

Boomtrix is like a marble run – with a difference! It’s a trampolining marble run that develops creativity and encourages kids to experiment with the laws of physics. The launch track drops the ball from a height, creating speed and then you set up the ball to bounce through the pads by means of gravity. Create your own course and use gravity to do as many tricks as possible!

Air Powered Car

This fun gadget is an educational DIY science kit but also an environmentally friendly toy too and all of the parts are included to make your very own air powered car. All you will need to help you build it is a screwdriver, ruler, hammer, scissors, permanent marker and some tissue paper. Once it is built, simply fill up the engine by pumping air into the bottle and once full, let go! This car can race around and reach rapid speeds, travelling up to 50 metres in only 35 seconds. There is no need for batteries so this is a winner for parents!  This Air Powered Car is a great STEM toy to get your children interested in science and DIY this Christmas.

Geomag Mechanics Challenge Strike

Geomag Mechanics Challenge Strike is a magnet building kit which  stimulates creativity, intervention and ingenuity. It adds mechanical elements to the buildings, expanding the game possibilities: some parts of the structures are able to rotate, triggering chain reactions generated by the attraction and repulsion of the magnets. This is a great STEM toy for kids that are a little older and like something more complex (8+). Buy your Geomags Mechanics Challenge Strike here shop the whole Geomags range here.

Power Tracks 

Power Tracks helps stimulate curious minds and teaches elements of STEM with Volty – the friendly programmable robot!  Power Tracks is easy to use for young kids – you simply connect the large tabletop tiles to make 1 of 20 circuits but it’s a toy that will last a while as older children could design their own tracks. This is a first introduction into coding and the exciting world of programming and circuit building for young kids. Buy it on Amazon here. 

 

 

Who Owns These Bones? Book by Henri Capi

This is such a clever book! With beautifully vivid illustrations of bones and skulls, meet a whole host of amazing skeletons and learn about what makes each one unique, from how to tell a gorilla from a human to how to recognize a turtle just from its skull. The book contains lots of lift the flaps to discover each skeleton’s animal owner, and find out amazing anatomy facts along the way! It will encourage those interested in medicine/biology to look deeper into the subject. This is large hardback book with so much detail and includes proper scientific terms and names (exoskeleton, coelacanth), and a look at the different bones in bodies, from wings to teeth to legs. But, that said, there is not too much text on a page and plenty of illustrations and loads of flaps with hidden information and guessing puzzles to keep you reading. ‘Who Owns These Bones ‘ is brilliant book for kids interested in Biology.

4 in 1 Robot

This is a great robot kit with great play value as it contains 4 different robots to make including a cricket and a trailer. The guidance is 8 years plus but our nearly 8 year old needed a little more guidance for adults so this is more of a kit to be enjoyed together. A battery is needed for this but only one AA battery which provides it with four different speeds. We liked that the four different modes were entirely different, for example there is a walking mode and a crawling trailer mode too.

The Element In the Room Book by Mike Barfield

This funny and fascinating guide is bursting with brilliant facts about the atomic ingredients that make up everything around us. The illustrations are quirky and colourful and segment the facts beautifully to help them not be overwhelming. This is like a very cool visual periodic table – it really brings the elements of Chemistry to life, The Element in the Room is nothing like a dry text book that just dishes up the facts but something really fun that really helps children engage with tricky subjects of materials and elements.

Timeline: Science Museum Game

Timeline: Science Museum is a card game played using 109 cards. Each card depicts an event on both sides, with the year in which that it occurred on only one side. It’s a fab, fun way to learn some of the key Science inventions and give kids a great grounding in both History and Science.

I hope you find the perfect gift amongst our STEM toys. There’s some more advice here for exploring STEM topics with your kids. If you’d like more advice for Christmas gifts, you can see our other gift lists here……

Looking for other ideas for kids’s Christmas Gifts…..

If you’d like more advice for Christmas gifts, you can see our other gift lists here……

Children’s Book Present Ideas for Kids with Big Imaginations

Unique Present Ideas for Kids aged 7-10 years

STEM Present Gift Guide for Kids

Gifts for Outdoorsy Kids who Love Exploring.

*The items in this gift guide were gifted items but all thoughts words and love of STEM toys are completely my own. I have only included toys that would make perfect gifts and that we genuinely love.*

*This post contains affiliate links which means that I gain a small percentage commission on each sale generated via my site.  It won’t cost you any more though!*