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Black Friday is Friday, November 27 this year, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30. If a math or STEM gift is on your list, this is the week a bigger set starts to make sense.
We are not going to list prices here. They change by the hour that week, and a number we typed on Tuesday could be wrong by Wednesday. What we can tell you is which gifts are worth waiting for, which ones are fine to buy at any price, and how to tell a real deal from a box that just says STEM on the front.
All fourteen come from our 25 Best Math and STEM Gifts for Kids Ages 6 to 12, picked by a former math teacher and principal. The full guide has the skill each one builds and one honest drawback. This is the short version for the shopping week.
Free for your classroom or kitchen table
Something to do while the gifts are still wrapped
The free Fall Math Pack has eight harvest word problems, three pumpkin array pages, an apple orchard multiplication maze, and a Fall Facts bingo set with caller cards for all 36 facts. Twelve pages, and they print fine in black and white. Enter your email and the download link appears right away.
Before you open the deals page
Make the list first. Pick one gift per kid from the age band that fits, and decide what you will spend before the countdown clocks start. A deal on something nobody on your list needs is not a deal.
Then check the age on the box against the kid, not the age on the photo. A gift aimed two years too high goes back in the closet. One aimed two years too low gets played with once.
Worth waiting for: the bigger gifts
These are the ones where a sale matters most, because the larger sets are the ones that keep getting used.
1. Magnetic tiles
Flat shapes that click together into walls, towers, and solid figures. Kids learn which shapes fit around a point and which ones make a cube. A small set runs out of pieces in one afternoon, so this is the one to buy bigger on sale.
2. Snap Circuits Jr.
Kids snap pieces onto a board to build working circuits from a picture guide: a light, a fan, a doorbell sound. It teaches that a circuit has to close before anything happens, and it does not need a screen.
Shop Snap Circuits Jr. on Amazon
3. LEGO Technic
Gears, axles, and beams instead of the usual bricks, with instructions that run long. Following a multi-step build without skipping a page is its own skill. Sets range widely in age and size, so read the box.
4. A K’NEX roller coaster
A big build that ends in a coaster that actually runs. Kids see how the height of the first hill decides how far the car gets. Plan on a full afternoon and a clear table.
Shop K’NEX roller coasters on Amazon
5. Catan
A trading game built on two dice. A 6 or an 8 can be rolled five ways out of 36, and a 2 or a 12 only one way, so the kid who notices that starts winning. That is probability without anyone calling it probability.
6. Ticket to Ride
Players collect cards and claim train routes across a map. It is planning, counting, and adding up a score at the end, and it plays well with grandparents at the table.
7. Laser Maze
A single-player logic game with a real laser and mirrors. Each challenge card sets the pieces, and the player has to work out where the rest go to hit the target. The cards get harder as they go.
8. Code and Go Robot Mouse
Kids press arrow buttons to program a short path, then watch the mouse run it. When it misses the cheese, they find the step that went wrong. That is debugging, at the younger end of the gift guide.
Shop the Code and Go Robot Mouse on Amazon
Fine at any price: the small ones
These rarely cost much to begin with. Buy them when you see them, and keep one or two back for stockings.
9. Math Dice
Roll two 12-sided dice and multiply them for a target number. Then roll three regular dice and combine them any way you can to get close. It is the most direct multiplication practice on this list.
10. SET
Eighty-one cards, each different in color, shape, number, and shading. Players race to find three cards that form a set. Adults do not get an advantage, which kids notice right away.
11. Shut the Box
Roll two dice and flip down any tiles that add up to the total. A roll of 9 could close the 9, or the 4 and 5, or the 1, 3, and 5. Choosing well is the whole game.
12. A Rubik’s Cube
The classic 3×3. Solving it means learning a few move sequences and when to use each one, which is the same thinking as following a procedure in math.
13. Kanoodle
A pocket puzzle: fit the pieces into the tray to match the starting layout in the book. Spatial reasoning, and it travels well.
14. Sleeping Queens
A card game where players use number cards to make simple addition equations and wake up the queens. Short rounds, and younger kids can win.
Shop Sleeping Queens on Amazon
How to tell a real deal
Five checks before you click Buy.
- The set size. Smaller sets often share the name and the photo style of the big one. Check the piece count against the set you meant to buy.
- Who sells it. The brand or Amazon itself is the safe choice. An unfamiliar seller with the same photo is worth a second look.
- The STEM label. Anyone can print STEM on a box. If it builds one thing once and then sits on a shelf, it is not the deal it looks like.
- The age on the box. Read it, then picture the kid.
- The return window. Check the return date on the order before you wrap it.
A math teacher’s note
The gifts that teach the most are the ones played more than once, and the ones an adult plays too. Pick one game from this list to play with your kid over the long weekend. If you want something for the car ride, our free play-along video runs all 36 facts from the summit down.
More from us
The full list, with every pick sorted by age, is 25 Best Math and STEM Gifts for Kids Ages 6 to 12.
For the classroom or a homeschool shelf, see 10 Best Math Manipulatives for Elementary Kids.
TimeTable Express
One more thing before you check out.
A new game is the easy part of December. The multiplication facts, however, do not take the holidays off, and a kid who is shaky on them now tends to be further behind by January.
That is why we built TimeTable Express. It starts at the summit with 9 × 9 and uses the commutative property, so your child learns roughly half as many facts to know all of them. A few minutes a day is plenty. It runs on the iPhone, iPad, or Android device you already own, and it is free to try for 7 days, then $5.99 a month or $19.99 a year.
Try it free on the App StoreTry it free on Google Play
And if you just want the free printables, they are right here:
