We hope you love our recommendations! Some may have been sent as samples, but all were independently selected by our editors. Just FYI, BuzzFeed and its publishing partners may collect a share of sales and/or other compensation from the links on this page.
1. A Disney princess necklace activity set so your future fashionista can get a headstart on designing their very own custom jewelry. I think the main question here is which Disney princess will they let you flaunt?!
Promising review: "My 3-year-old twins loved it, entertained for hours, which is rare and so worth $7. Perfect for teaching coordination, color patterns, and encourages creativity. The necklaces are a soft, stretchy material with a safe breakaway clasp but that also stays on well. I wore a necklace for hours around the house and didn't fall off. The beads are cute and a good variety of colors. Overall great project, loads of fun for toddlers." —Lyss
Get it from Amazon for $11.09+ (available in 15 styles).
2. A flying orb with flashing lights and honestly maybe some real life magic? It will automatically create different flight paths and boomerang effects depending on the speed and angles that it's thrown.
Promising review: "This is one of the coolest toys I have ever bought. It seems almost magical the way it floats from one person to another — perfect for indoors play. It is enough fun that my kids will use it instead of playing on their computers, which is the highest praise I can bestow on a toy." —Jill B
Get it from Amazon for $32 (available in seven colors).
3. A foam pogo jumper safer than a traditional pogo stick, but still just as fun!! Your kiddos will love bouncing around from room to room, and you'll love them burning off all their pent-up energy.
Promising review: "I ordered these as a last minute addition to the pile of Christmas gifts my kids opened this year. These stole the show. I’m so glad that I found something to keep them active indoors! Five days later, they still haven’t put them down. We just ordered four more for friends/family!" —Joe C.
Get it from Amazon for $16+ (available in 17 designs).
4. A miniature baking set to put the Easy Bake Oven lightbulb cooking to shame. Create delicious (yet tiny) treats while learning all the science behind baking. Maybe they can whip up a few treats for your Thanksgiving spread!
The set comes with a storage tin, rolling pin, wee knife, pizza/dough cutter, mixing spoon, three wee spoons, mixing bowl, pizza/pie pan, pie server, sheet pan, silicone cake and cupcake molds, two silicone finger mitts, and 48-page recipe book.
Promising review: "This keeps my daughter busy for HOURS! My daughter saw this online somewhere, and she asked for it as a birthday gift. I expected it to be cute, but not useful. As it turns out, I was completely wrong. She has regularly made mini chocolate chip cookies, and she'll be doing mini calzones tomorrow. It's adorable and the recipes totally work. She and her friends LOVE it." —Elura C. Kish
Get it from Amazon for $26.37.
5. A beginner microscope STEM kit for the budding scientists in your life who love learning about the world around them, no matter how small.
The kit comes with sample slides, cover slips, tweezers, scalpel, specimen vials, adjustable lenses, collecting lamps, and a sturdy storage case.
Promising review: "My 9-year-old niece was asking for a microscope for her birthday and I decided to buy it and I am so happy that I did. This kit has everything that your young scientist needs! I mean it has everything, there are blank slides and labels, tweezers and 'scalpels,' small vials, and so much more. It even includes shrimp eggs to hatch. How cool is that?!? My niece was so excited about this present that at her birthday party she had all the kids taking turns looking at slides of onion skins and dragonfly wings and leaves. This is a great starter microscope for a little scientist and it is educational fun for the whole family. This makes a great way to get kids and adults off the electronics and learning about the world around them." —craftysarah
Get it from Amazon for $41.99 (available in two versions).
6. A ring toss game that your kids are gonna be ~hooked~ on as soon as they play it once — tbh the whole fam will love it, no matter how young or old!
Promising review: "Fantastic babysitter. My kids have been on the back porch since I put it up, three hours ago. Nice construction in easy instructions for installation." —Timothy S. Reichert
Get it from Amazon for $19.99+ (available in three versions).
7. A wooden geoboard so they can create fun and unique shapes and designs out of rubber bands (maybe a pumpkin, fall leaves, or a ghost), and if they need a little help getting started it comes with 35 pattern cards for inspiration!
Promising reviews: "This item was exactly what I needed for some of the younger children because handling the rubber bands helps develop their fine motor muscles. It also encourages imagination and creativity and counting. They make designs and love it. For older ages there are cards with designs for them to try and duplicate. Young children can also make shapes and letters thus developing math and literacy skills. This is a sturdy, well-made geoboard." —Kathleen Loden Barbuti
"Bought the geoboard for my 4-year-old grandson who enjoyed making his own pictures and designs. As a retired math teacher, I can tell you that geoboards are great hands-on learning tools for children of any age. My seventh-grade students loved when our lessons involved 'playing' with geoboards!" —anne porter
Get it from Amazon for $21.99.
8. A personalized giant wooden Connect 4–style game that'll put all the other ~regular~ sized games to shame. Game night just got a *huge* upgrade.
Chroma Fling is a small biz based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that specializes in personalized gifts and accessories.
This is a personalized game, so be sure to enter the name and date you want on the game in the personalization box.
Promising review: "Very nice craftsmanship. Personalization is perfect." —Sherri
Get it from Chroma Fling on Etsy for $199.99 (available in seven disc colors).
9. A two-pack of LED hover balls so your kiddos can finally play soccer inside without the risk of injury or breaking something. These easily glide across the floor like an air hockey puck and has built-in bumpers to protect your baseboards.
Promising reviews: "We have so much fun 'kicking' this around the kitchen or basement! Gets us all (adults and kids) up, moving and laughing as a family! Helps with the long-winter-day blues!" —Jollyholiday7
"These are so fun! This is the perfect toy for my high-energy 8-year-old boy, he loves getting to play soccer in the house and I love that nothing gets broken. These work really well and are definitely a good value; it’s great that you get two with the purchase." —Britni
Get a pack of two from Amazon for $29.34.
10. A marble run set to not only entertain while the marbles are going down, but also while you build the set. All the pieces are compatible so there are endless ways to arrange it to constantly create new tracks for the marbles to run down.
Promising reviews: "My 5- and 3-year-olds (and me) have spent hours building towers and watching marbles clatter down these chutes, steps, gears and spirals, HOURS! And they’re not bored yet! It’s also educational learning the physics of slopes by experience. Plus, it comes with enough marbles that losing a few doesn’t matter." —Joyce Parker
"This is a really neat toy that has provided literally hours and hours of enjoyment for my 4-year-old nephew. (And me!) The pieces fit well together, it is very sturdy and stands up well even on carpet. There are an infinite number of ways to build these runs, and this toy never gets boring. Highly recommended." —Becca
Get it from Amazon for $44.99+ (available in three different quantities).
11. Banzai Bump N' Bounce Body Bumpers perfect for those kiddos that have soooo much built-up energy and always seem to want to wrestle someone. Now they can do it in a safe way (that also just so happens to be *incredibly* entertaining to watch).
PSA: Make sure helmets are worn during bump-offs.
Promising review: "Absolutely hilarious to watch! I got these for my kids (seven and eight) because I thought it would be a perfect way to blow off steam and get out some energy... It was great! They ran at each other pretty hard, but it didn't pop and no one got hurt! If your kids do a lot of bickering like mine do... Get these! 😅" —Sky Moran
Get a set of two from Amazon for $21.98.
12. A pack of Crayola Globbles so your kiddos can finally throw something at the wall because that's its purpose, not because they are full of rage. Or for those that are ~calmer,~ these are also super fun to stretch and squeeze. Plus they won't leave behind any nasty residue for you to deal with.
Check out a TikTok of the globbles in action.
Promising review: "My 15-year-old asked for these after seeing them on TikTok. I got them as a stocking stuffer thinking they’d be tossed aside. Unbelievably he and his 17-year-old brother have spent time lying in the floor, tossing them up to the ceiling, and waiting for them to fall so they can catch them. I never expected them to get this much use. Bonus is they’re off their phones and in the family room with us." —Amazon Customer
Get a set of six from Amazon for $11.99+ (also available in 16 count).
13. A Dueling Stomp Rocket launcher because the only thing better than launching one rocket is launching two and seeing who can shoot theirs the highest (up to 200 feet)!
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This set comes with four rockets and a dueling launcher so you can compete to see who can shoot their rocket the highest!
Promising review: "I purchased this as one of my stepson's birthday presents this past fall. He just turned eight, and I was trying to get some more outside toys to play with. I thought that he'd enjoy it, but I had no clue how popular this freakin' toy would be. All of our kids, ages 2–8, LOVE this thing and so do all of the neighbor kids. It is played with every single time the kids are outside, sometimes for hours. I have never seen my kids play with ANYTHING for hours, but they sure do with this. Taking it out guarantees that every kid under the age of 12 will appear in our yard." —TheLeeFamily
Get it from Amazon for $19.97 (available in two variations).