Free ScreenThe holiday season is a wonderful time to show the children in your life how much you care. But finding the perfect gift that is both fun and beneficial for their development can feel like a challenge. That’s where our Kinetic Edge Occupational Therapists step in! Our team has curated a list of 13 gift ideas that go beyond entertainment—they’re designed to help kids build fine motor skills, coordination, problem-solving abilities, attention, sensory processing, visual skills, and more. Whether you’re shopping for a toddler or a school-age child, these thoughtfully selected toys and games will encourage growth while keeping playtime exciting.
- Magnetic tiles facilitate creative play, fine motor skills, and problem solving. Build them into a big castle, create a design on your fridge, or work with your child to identify shapes.
- Pluffle is a fun way to incorporate tactile input into play! It is a texture similar to oobleck that is squishy and melts into your hand without wetness, mess, or sticky residue. Fun ways to incorporate pluffle into play would be hiding objects in the pluffle for kids to find or squeezing the pluffle into balls and watching it “melt”. Tactile and messy play is great at expanding the variety of input a child can tolerate which impacts skills such as feeding, handwriting, and grooming/hygiene tasks.
- Buildzi is a great game to promote problem solving, sequencing, creativity, and body control to balance pieces to build a tower. Children follow a pattern on cards to form a tower. This can be done individually, or as a game with the whole family either completing against each other or working together to make the towers. This is also a great game to work on patterning, and color recognition. It can also be made more challenging for different ages!
- Rush Hour Jr challenges kids to problem solve at various levels, beginner to super hard, while also working on their visual perception and frustration tolerance. After setting up the game board by matching the correct car placement on each card, the goal is to get the ice cream truck out of traffic. The other cars must be moved in order for it to escape! Most kids really enjoy the challenge and ask to play it all the time. It’s great for kids to preteens.
- Mad Dragon is a fantastic card game for all ages because it combines fun and learning in a way that keeps kids engaged while helping them develop essential skills. Designed to help children manage anger, the game teaches strategies for handling big emotions in a safe and supportive environment. Through role-playing and scenario-based questions, players practice emotional regulation, empathy, and problem-solving. The game’s interactive nature also fosters social skills, as kids take turns and learn to listen to others’ perspectives.
- This dinosaur build set is a great way to promote fine motor coordination, visual processing skills, problem solving, and attention to task. Plus, there are endless ways to encourage the child to play once the dinosaurs are all put together! They can be a master toy builder or a dino vet to the rescue! Scatter these pieces to an obstacle course for even more fun.
- Blu Track is a great race car track that allows a child to creatively build the durable track and race other cars. While building and racing children are also working on social skills, regulation, problem solving, counting, and more.
8. Hungry Cutters Magnetic Vehicle Mix-n-Match
- This toy facilitates problem solving, fine motor skills, and develops visual skills. It is fun to create and build whatever you want to build and also follow instructions to build a specific car. It is fun for all kids who enjoy building and cars.
- Topple is a great activity that focuses on developing your child’s ability to use small control movements, increase their body awareness, Impulse control, visual motor integration, turn taking, sequencing, and fine motor coordination. Topple is a fun game that the whole family can partake in!
- Wonder tubes is a visual stimulating activity that promotes regulation, visual scanning, attention and sensory processing. wonder tubes are great for calm down corners, sensory go bags for public areas, and to help the body prepare for rest.
- Suspend is an engaging activity that promotes fine motor skills, visual motor skills, problem solving and flexible thinking! A child can complete the balancing puzzle on their own or include a group in the fun challenge!
- The Bright Starts Activity Table is great for 6-24 months with promoting standing, squatting, cruising, and walking as it is interactive and the added component of placing the balls in the center and finding which corner it drops to! Hide the balls around the room for your child to find and bring back for even more fun.
- Kanoodle is a brain teaser puzzle game that promotes problem solving, fine motor coordination, and visual perceptual skills. It includes 200 2D & 3D puzzles from basic beginner to deviously difficult.
By incorporating toys and games that promote essential developmental skills, you’re giving children more than just a gift—you’re giving them tools to learn, grow, and thrive. At Kinetic Edge, we’re passionate about helping children reach their full potential. If you’d like additional guidance or resources to support your child’s development, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. Wishing you a joyful holiday season filled with meaningful moments and happy play!
