It’s not always easy being a six-year-old. For kids in traditional schooling, being 6 means transitioning from play-based learning to lecture-style classroom learning.

And even for those being homeschooled, being six years old means beginning a journey toward more structure and responsibility. This means that as you look for gift ideas for the six-year-old in your life, you want to look for toys that are engaging, educational, and of course - fun.

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Educational Toys for Six Year Olds

Board Games for Six Year Olds

The Floor is Lava is a game very reminiscent of one you probably played as a child yourself. This game requires players to imagine the floor is hot lava while spinning the color wheel to jump to the correct foam pieces to reach safety. This is a fun family game that everyone can play. Plus, it promotes physical activity and using your imagination. Overall, this game sets the stage for plenty of excitement from kids and adults alike!

There’s so much educational fun to be had in word games and what better place to start than Scrabble! I love Scrabble Junior because it has a double-sided board so that the game grows with your child. If your child is just learning to spell, you can play on the side of the board that has picture clues and color-coded words. Then, when your child shows readiness to advance, they can utilize the other side and build their own words!

This is a game I’ve mentioned before when talking about fun Montessori-aligned board games for families, and it’s perfect as a gift for six year olds! You can play in teams or one-on-one and use strategy to figure out what’s on the game card. There’s multiple categories to choose from - states, cities, food, etc.

This game is perfect for helping improve a child’s awareness of color and logical abilities. There’s multiple ways to play the game, but my own favorite is to have the child roll the dice and see if they can remember which color peg matches the color rolled. It’s also incredibly easy to set up and great for any child over the age of three!

STEM Gifts for Six Year Olds

This science kit includes over 84 unique experiments and touches on multiple areas of science, including chemistry, earth science, biology, and physics! I also appreciate that the kit includes items that are completely safe for kids, so they can have hours of fun without the risk of shattering glass or otherwise hurting themselves. This kit is also perfect for those looking to add supplemental learning to our Montessori Science Curriculum!

Another great science kit is this one from National Geographic! This super fun microscope includes 10 prepared slides, allowing your child to investigate biological specimens such as a fern leaf, earthworm, and pollen germ. This is a toy that’s sure to spark a lifelong love of science in your child.

Another favorite from National Geographic is this magnetic marble run! The opportunities for building unique combinations and tracks is truly endless. I also love that it can be built on any vertical magnetic surface, like a whiteboard or your fridge!

Speaking of marble runs, this one by Dynamo is sure to be a hit with your six year old. While they enjoy building domino tracks, they’re also developing their spatial reasoning abilities, patience, and problem-solving skills. This is another one that is sure to be a family favorite, as kids and adults alike are sure to enjoy!

This is a set that your little engineer could spend an entire day with and still beg for more! The building opportunities here are truly endless. It opens the door to so much creativity and imagination, while also enhancing hand-eye coordination, observation skills, and logical thinking. As a mom, I also appreciate how easy these toys are to clean up and store away!

This is a great game to expand your child’s problem-solving skills and spatial thinking abilities. Similar to a marble run, this toy allows your child to create and plan out different routes and tracks on the provided plate set. With many different ways to play, this is another toy that your six year old is sure to enjoy for hours on end.

This 3-D Building Game includes a set of 15 brightly colored plastic blocks and 40 2-D cards that invite you to recreate the build from that viewpoint. I love the opportunity here for problem-solving fun and it’s also a great way to further introduce your six year old to early math skills.

If you have a dino-obsessed six year old in your life, they are going to absolutely flip over this dinosaur egg set! You simply soak these clay eggs in water and then chisel away to excavate the dinosaurs inside. Admittedly this set can be a bit messy, which makes it perfect for outdoor play, but it’s well worth it to see the joy and concentration on their little faces!

Consider pairing this with clean water in a tupperware container and a dry washcloth, so your child can clean and carefully observe their findings. If you want extra points, lay out matching cards for your child to cross-reference against the types of dinosaurs they find. It’s a great way to build vocabulary!

Creative Gifts for Six Year Olds

This set could certainly fall under STEM gifts for six year olds, but it’s also a great opportunity for creativity. I’m a huge fan of magnetic tiles for my kids and with 104 pieces in this set, they’ll be able to build almost anything they can imagine! I love the colors of this set, but the icing on the cake is definitely the bonus ferris wheel!

This candle making set is always a hit! It’s incredibly straightforward, but still gives space to let their creativity run wild. While the set itself is a great gift, you may find your child takes it one step further and uses it to then create gifts themselves! I also appreciate that the wax isn’t scented, so you don’t have to worry about sensitivities, regardless of the user.

When it comes to cooking with kids , this cookbook set is a must-have! While it’s technically designed for children ages 8 and up, there’s no reason you can’t begin to introduce this to your six year old. This cookbook set includes tutorials to build cooking skills, tips on kitchen prep, and age-appropriate recipes that the whole family is sure to love. Keep in mind that your six-year-old will need help reading this one!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this list of awesome educational toys for six-year-olds. Whether you’re shopping for a six year old’s birthday, holidays, or simply looking to add to your collection of educational toys, anything from this list is sure to be a hit with the six-year-old in your life.