35 Holiday Gifts That Will Secretly Challenge Kids' Minds

Bend your kiddo's brain and give their creativity a work out with this three dimensional puzzle for all ages.

They can master solitaire or take their house of cards design to a new level with these wooden build-able playing cards.

This building game requires balance and strategy to emerge victorious. It's like Jenga on mental steroids.

The fidget widget is great for kiddos still working on dexterity and fine motor skills. Also cool for grown-ups looking for something to do with restless texting fingers.

Help your kiddos harness their inner DaVinci with this working model of his 15th century catapult. The kit even comes with the perfect ammunition — remarkable brainbows — scientific spitballs that won't leave a mark.

These cubed mazes for the mind will keep brains stimulated for hours. Discontinue use when smoke starts coming out their ears.

Kyro 5 is a strategy game of five-in-a-row that hones spatial reasoning skills.

OK, this looks insanely fun. Plus it encourages calculated risk-taking.

Kiddos (or families) get to create the game boards before diving into a good old-fashioned game night.

For your littlest brainiacs, Stormy Seas looks like a toy but is actually an exercise in basic physics concepts.

Magnatab improves fine motor skills and encourages creativity. It also makes a satisfying sound.

Strengthen your sense of touch with this blind grab-bag game. Pick a card, and then attempt to find the item pictured while discovering how difficult it really is to rely on tactile perception alone.

Hand/eye coordination is forced into overdrive when you take the balance challenge of Suspend.

Iota gets harder as the game goes on, requiring critical thinking and challenging spatial relations skills.

Squigz defy gravity and allow kiddos to build anything anywhere, setting imaginations free.

Colorfall combines dominoes and design — pick a card, set up the dominoes, and watch the colors fall to reveal a pattern or image.

These magnetic construction pieces "always connect, never reject" making the building possibilities literally endless.

Also making use of magnets, Tegu blocks come in a variety of colors, and inspire little minds and fingers to build new worlds.

This 130 cube puzzle featuring modern art greats is actually six puzzles in one.

You will want to steal this addictive game from your kids. Comes ready to challenge focus, concentration, motor skills, hand-eye coordination, reasoning, and spatial thinking.

Let your older kiddos try their hand at building these mini mind benders.

You had a spirograph. You loved your spirograph. You didn't even know you were working with mathematical concepts.

Introduce your children to art concepts of all kinds with the Children Should Know series.

Take their memory and reasoning skills for a ride with the timeless Shell Game.

Got a maze lover on your hands? Keep them guessing with this maze that changes as you play!

These twenty-five magical activities (that are really science) will blow your kid's mind.

Sixty challenges to give your frontal cortex a work out. Grow your skills from beginning to advanced as you master this maze/marble run mash up.

This one's just a straight up marble run, with endless hours of nostalgic fun included.

Hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills are invited to join the party when kids play On The Dot.

Boasting over 2 quadrillion times more permutations than the original Rubix Cube, the X-Cube will put even the best puzzler in their place.

An awesome tactile brain-booster for little ones, Mental Blox combines 3D blocks and patterned cards to create a game of strategic thinking and skill.

Kiddos can create complex stacked formations with these innovative little figures.

Over two hundred entertaining 2D and 3D puzzles are packed into this portable box. Great for solo play.

Physical play meets virtual play in this coordination and creativity boosting activity.

This ain't their mama's jigsaw puzzle. smArt Puzzles are made up of square cards that need to be twisted and shifted to create familiar works for art.