Gifts For Boys Aged 8-12

How cool is this NIKKO ™ RC VelociTrax™? It’s been specially designed for super-fast stunt racing. Thanks to its treads can handle all kinds of terrain, so we have creating obstacles courses for it with cushions and things, so it brings out the engineer in kids too. It’s got great manoeuvrability and can execute 360-degree spins and other tricks that make it an unstoppable machine.  It comes with a 1 Hour quick charger included. Toy State, make a great range of cool vehicles, many are radio-controlled (RC) vehicles and they come in a great range of bright colours – we love our Neon Green one.  Plenty more vehicles to collect too with lots of great features.

For a practical, but fun gift think about updating their bedding and adding a theme to a room. We ummed and ahhed between the Pokemon themed bedding or this Minecraft set from Character World and settled for Minecraft in the end. Your child could have a Minecraft bedroom makeover in time for the festive season with this colourful duvet set and coordinating accessories. The full range includes a reversible cushion, a cube cushion, duvet sets in single and double sizes, a fleece blanket, towel and cube shaped beanbag.  The duvet set has a picture on one side and the Minecraft logo on the other.

Schools are now teaching programming, but if you have a computer geek on your hands, you’ll have found that the amount of time they spend at school on it isn’t enough to satisfy their coding appetites.  With the Mover Kit children can be the programmers of their own designs and movement, and they will enjoy inventing loads of ways to bring the motion sensor, compass, LED lights of the wearable to life. I love how the Mover Kit reacts to movement in any way you program it to so you can run, jump, dance, spin or use it as a lightsaber (or is that just our house?). The Mover Kit blends fun and imagination with the creative and technical STEM skills kids need for their future.

I find it more difficult to encourage my son to get crafty these days, so it’s good to have a set that is gender neutral and which allows free rein to the imagination. I really like our Simbrix Kit, which is suitable for ages 6+.  Basically you can use the multi-coloured, little bricks to create an array of designs, which can be easily made and re-made. There’s no need for tweezers, a peg board, ironing or glueing, which frankly comes as somewhat of a relief to me having tried various bead crafts in the past.  We had the Cute Kit which makes a good starter set.

Playmags are one of H’s favourite toys and one he comes back to time and again.  He loves constructing things from these magnetic shapes and he’s been able to create a whole range of things.  If your child likes constructing sets, I’d really recommend these as I think they are one of the best on the market and are very well made.  You can make buildings and even vehicles depending on the sets.  The sets can be stand alone or you can expand your collection and your opportunities to build more cool stuff.