The 33 Best Gifts for 5-Year-Olds (2024)

With two prolific kid artists-in-residence, my family has struggled to find a good method for corralling our assorted markers, crayons, and colored pencils. This rainbow-shaped Flytreal Acrylic Pen Holder is the best solution we’ve landed on so far, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s also kind of adorable. With five compartments in varying heights, it accommodates a range of different-size drawing tools. The container has rubber pads on its underside, so if you grab something out of it or bump it, it won’t send the whole thing skittering. And since it’s open at the top (unlike some of the lidded or latched organizers we’ve tried in the past), my kids don’t need my help with it. When they want to get started with a project, I just hand it over to them—or I can ask them to put their supplies away themselves when they’re finished … in theory, at least.

My daughter loves the tactile and squishy texture of Crayola’s Model Magic. She’s used it to mold everything from a fantastical landscape of fairy houses to a family of tiny pigs. The clay hardens after about 24 hours, so her figurines are sturdy enough to handle and play with (though she’s had pieces fall apart here and there). She was given the Deluxe Variety Pack, with a range of colors, as well as the white modeling clay, which she stains with acrylic paint. As your child grows older, the clay also comes in handy for school projects; it’s perfect for building a diorama or any 3D design. And as a parent, I appreciate that the clay doesn’t crumble or leave behind a mess.

Sulwe, a children’s book by actor Lupita Nyong’o and illustrated by Vashti Harrison, is a magical tale that stems from the author’s real-life experiences. Like the titular character, Nyong’o was teased about her dark skin and, according to the book’s author notes, prayed for a lighter complexion. Sulwe—a picture book in which most of the pages display a purple, starry night sky—features Black people in every shade. But the bullying of Sulwe over her deep skin—the color of midnight, as the book describes it—is the real story. Though children of color will connect with the themes of colorism, all kids will find something to relate to in Sulwe’s spirited journey toward loving herself just as she is.

The concept of the Haba Bathtub Ball Track Set is simple: Create a “course” by suctioning three track pieces and a paddle wheel to a vertical surface; then send a ball down the run. This surprisingly delightful toy, which is a favorite in our guide to the best bath toys, had my son taking decadently long showers as he experimented with new configurations. We found it works best when you’re standing, but one Wirecutter editor uses it with her kids in the tub with equal success (as evidenced by the rousing cheers when the ball makes it all the way through the course). One small gripe: The set comes with only one ball, which is easy to misplace.

This contraption’s sliding mechanism lets you trap an insect, an arachnid, or a small lizard from a distance. And it has a built-in magnifier, so you can get a closer look at your catch. My daughter gave the Carson HU-10 BugView to one of her friends for her fifth birthday, and the friend and her younger sister love it. They were already pretty into bugs, and they relish catching and carefully investigating critters in their yard—and then releasing them afterward.

Not all games need to produce a winner and a loser to be fun. Cooperative games have all players working together toward a common goal. These games can help 5-year-olds practice skills like collaboration, compromise, communication, and conflict mediation, all of which are vital to their social and emotional learning at school and out in the world. In the Race to the Treasure! Board Game, the goal is to gather three keys to unlock a treasure before an ogre reaches it. First, the players roll the dice to determine where on the grid to place the keys. They then take turns picking game tiles and deciding where to place them on the board, in order to lay a path to the keys and avoid the ogre.

School introduces children to a new social order—peers, teachers, administrators—and books can help them navigate it. But there’s one problem: Kids can sniff out “boring” educational books full of “teaching moments” as easily as they can an organic cereal masquerading as a box of Lucky Charms. That's why I turn to the pros for their tried-and-true picks. My son’s kindergarten teacher began the first day of school with an animated reading of My Mouth Is a Volcano!, about a boy who struggles to not interrupt others. The class was mesmerized. Our school principal read from Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Students responded by proudly sharing stories of the disabilities that make them—or someone they love—unique.

This fast-paced party game is a true unicorn: ridiculous, competitive, and fun for kids as well as adults. It also couldn’t be simpler to learn. To play Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, participants take turns blurting out the titular words while flipping down each cutely illustrated card. When a match occurs between the word uttered and the card flipped, everyone rushes to slap the pile, and the last slapper inherits the whole thing. (The first person to get rid of all of their cards wins.) Three additional action cards ramp up the mayhem and bring out the silly sides of even the most intense, self-serious players. The game is officially recommended for kids over age 8, but we’ve participated in hotly contested rounds with fierce competitors ranging from 4 to 72—all of whom nearly wore out their voices and slapping hands.

Skillmatics’ Found It! Indoor Edition is an elevated scavenger-hunt card game that can be played at home without any preparation. If you have a larger group, you can designate a reader to ask the “Can you find … ?” questions on the cards, with kids competing to be the first to locate a particular item. Or you can play it with just one child, as we’ve often done with our son. The cards direct players to find objects around the house, and the prompts range from being straightforward (“An object that you can write with”) to more complex (“Something that is the color formed by mixing yellow and blue”). If you’re playing as a twosome, the 50 game cards offer supplemental questions or additional tasks for the child to complete (such as using their newly found object to write the first two letters of their name). I like that this game can be played for any length of time—complete two cards or 20. For those who don’t want to be constrained by the limits of four walls, there’s also an outdoor version, which we haven’t yet tried.

Created in a surf shop in San Diego, the Spooner Boards Freestyle Balance Board mimics the feel of surfing—with some skateboarding and snowboarding thrown into the mix. Unlike other balance boards, this one is made from durable plastic material, and it has a uniquely curved shape that allows for standing, twisting, and rocking, as well as spinning. We keep ours in the living room, where our kids hop on and off the board throughout the day. (We found that you need at least a 2-foot radius of indoor or outdoor space to use the board.) And its rocking movement also helps kids work on their balance and gross motor skills, according to Allie Ticktin, an occupational therapist in Los Angeles and author of the book Play to Progress: Lead Your Child to Success Using the Power of Sensory Play. Plus, this board engages the mind. “I like that the child has to come up with how to play with it, so it’s going to push their creativity,” said Ticktin. My 7-year-old son liked trying to master some special tricks, while my 4-year-old daughter loved spinning around endlessly in circles. The board comes in multiple colors, and if you don’t want your home to look like a skate park, it can be tucked away fairly easily.

All of the kindergartners in my life are united in their love of these Take Apart Dinosaur Toys, which combine the joy of brandishing a power tool with the eternal awesomeness of dinos. The set comes with a child-safe power drill, a hand drill, and the parts for three dinosaurs (these can be constructed to form a T. rex, a velociraptor, and a triceratops). My nephew has been known to tinker with his set for hours—screwing in the plastic joints to create the three big-name dinos, or mixing and matching the parts to invent hybrids beyond paleontology’s wildest dreams.

When my son was a toddler, we bought him the Moon in My Room for a couple of reasons, the first being that he was afraid of sleeping in the dark. We also got it because he loved spotting the moon in the night sky and pointing it out to everyone, shouting, “Moon! Moon!” When he started learning about the planets, the sun, and, yes, the moon in school, he found a renewed appreciation for the night-light—including the craggy detailing that’s evident even way up on the wall. The remote (which we initially kept to ourselves) allows him to choose a phase and adjust the brightness, depending on his mood or how the actual moon looks outside. As parents, we appreciate that the night-light shuts off by itself. (If you’re giving it as a gift, we recommend that you include batteries; it requires four AA and two AAA.)

Aside from a live parrot, a treasure chest is the ultimate in pirate-themed accessories. My son got Melissa & Doug’s Wooden Pirate Chest when he was 5, and it quickly became a staple in his toy rotation. It comes with an eye patch, plastic gold coins, and a skull-and-crossbones bandana. A slat at the bottom of the chest pops out to reveal a secret compartment, and the chest as a whole is large enough to stow small toys and other miscellany. (We added these jewels—can there ever be too much treasure?) If looking the part is crucial to your little one’s swashbuckling vibe, consider also getting in this pirate costume, which includes a one-piece outfit, a hat, and a plastic eye patch and dagger.

Online descriptions don’t do justice to the Ultimate Book pop-up series. Each book has a theme, including The Ultimate Book of Vehicles and The Ultimate Book of Cities, and each one is impressively oversized and contains a bevy of tactile, three-dimensional surprises. Over the course of multiple engaging, jam-packed scenes, The Ultimate Construction Site Book uncovers the intricacies of how various structures get built. Among our favorites: the subway section (which features a subterranean world that literally unfolds to reveal a horizontal expanse of tunnel-boring and track-laying machines) and a pop-up illustration of how to build a roller-coaster (with interactive tabs detailing different aspects of its construction). I was especially grateful for the book’s detailed, informative captions; when my curious child asked me “how the track gets curvy without falling down,” I had answers.

During one of our summer visits to California, my oldest daughter (then around age 5) started helping her grandfather plant, weed, and harvest in his large, lush vegetable garden. Whether you have a huge garden or a modest green space, or even if you grow indoors only, Green Toys’ Abby’s Garden Planting Activity Set and Watering Can Toy can help encourage a child to develop a green thumb. Wirecutter has long recommended this company’s toys—including this sandbox set—because they are made from durable but slightly flexible plastic. So unlike cheaper, more-brittle sets that crack and shatter, Green Toys’ offerings can survive years of use, indoors and outdoors. This indoor-gardening set includes three pots and a stand (perfect for placing on a windowsill), a trowel, ready-to-go soil discs, and three packets of seeds. The watering-can set pairs well with the pot set; it comes with a hand rake and a small shovel.

The only thing more annoying than filling and tying water balloons is cleaning up the detritus of their burst bodies from the pokey grass of your lawn. These magnetic silicone balloons solve that problem and more. For one thing, you won’t have to worry about an unsuspecting bird ingesting a forgotten piece of Barbie-pink latex. Also, the balloons are easy for kids to fill by themselves—and not just once but hundreds of times. The most interesting observation I made while watching my 5-year-old daughter and her friends play with these balloons was that they weren’t necessarily violently lobbing them at each other. Instead, they floated the balloons across the pool, squished the two sides of the circle together to make them squirt water into the air, or—perhaps most ingeniously—turned them into hermit crab homes. (We were sure to release the little guys soon after capture.)

When my son turned 5, he fell hard for baking-soda volcanoes: the anticipation, the inevitable eruption, the whole frothy affair. The Learning Resources Primary Science Lab Set brought things to a new level, allowing him to fill beakers, pour from test tubes, don goggles, use a magnifying glass, and more. Most of the time, he asks to concoct volcanoes—we just use the larger beaker as our “volcano,” though you could certainly place that inside your own papier-mâché mountain. We’ve also done all of the simple, engaging experiments that come printed on the cards. The whole thing stokes his curiosity and keeps us talking about science, which makes me very happy.

Fort building is a fun, enduring childhood tradition—from creating a privacy nook with an old blanket and a few pillows to fashioning a time machine to building a rocket ship. The Crazy Forts Construction Toy—which comes with 44 plastic poles, 25 connector balls, and building instructions—takes fort building up a notch. Kids can make endless structural configurations and build secret hideouts with the simple addition of a light sheet. Another option is the similarly designed Lakeshore Ultimate Fort Builder, which we recommend in our guide to craft projects and creative toys we love for kids. And if you need a structure big enough for, say, the whole family, consider buying two of the same set and connecting them.

A winner of the prestigious Kinderspiel des Jahres award for best children’s board game, Dragon’s Breath offers themes and features that are sure to appeal to many 5-year-olds: sparkly gems, cute cartoon dragons, a magical ice tower, and a cleverly designed, two-level game board. This board game differs from more-traditional entries that have you roll a die, spin a wheel, or draw a card to move along on the board. Instead, up to four players construct a column using translucent plastic rings (representing a magical ice tower); this offers just enough of a fine-motor-skills challenge for a 5-year-old to find it satisfyingly tricky. Players then fill this tower with small, sparkly gems of different colors. Each player is responsible for collecting a specific color, and players take turns removing one ring at a time from the ice tower, causing the gems to scatter out onto the board (some will slip down into holes in the board). Kids have to gather as many gems of their color as they can. The game requires a mix of strategy and luck, and it’s mildly competitive and quick to play.

A soft intro to paleontology, MindWare’s Dig It Up! Dinosaur Eggs set offers little explorers a hands-on excavation experience. The kit includes 12 individually wrapped clay eggs and 12 chisel tools. Keewa Nurullah, owner of the children’s shop Kido Chicago, loved watching her youngsters get their hands messy as they soaked the eggs in water and then chipped away at the softened clay to reveal the dinos inside. An excavation guidebook explains more about each find, but the digging is where it’s at. When editor Ingrid Skjong’s 5-year-old received this set as a gift, he was determined to free all 12 dinos in one sitting. Doling them out over several weeks proved a bit more reasonable—and extended the fun.

Whether you’re 5 or 35, watching a caterpillar transform into a big, beautiful butterfly is an incredible thing to experience, and Insect Lore’s Butterfly Farm was a big hit in my home. My kids fell in love with the tiny baby caterpillars, which started off the size of rice grains and grew to the size of my 5-year-old daughter’s pinky finger before metamorphosing into Painted Lady butterflies. After a few days of watching them flitter about, we released them in the park. This was perfect, wholesome, educational fun, especially for my daughter, who considered the butterflies to be her babies because she assisted in their “birth.” If you’re planning to give and use the Butterfly Farm immediately, this kit comes with live caterpillars. If you need to wait for warmer weather or would prefer to ease into butterfly rearing, Insect Lore’s Butterfly Garden comes with a voucher, so you can send off for the caterpillars when you’re ready to watch nature’s magic.

This is one of the weirder—and more delightful—things in my house. From across a room, the Kiko+ Wakka Retro Water Game looks like a traditional, old-fashioned wooden toy—something a character from Little House on the Prairie might have received in her Christmas stocking, along with an orange, in a particularly good year. But once you’ve got this game in your hands, it immediately brings nostalgic flashes of those cheapo handheld plastic water games from the ’80s—with all of the same, addictive fun and frustration. Children are drawn to its deceptive Gameboy appearance, and then they get sucked in by the challenge of trying to spear plastic floating rings using only puffs of water. Adults tend to appreciate the stress relief that comes along with spending more than five minutes on something that doesn’t involve a screen. They also like this toy’s lovely, minimalist aesthetic. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why it’s so satisfying, but I do know that I could play with it for hours if my kid would only let me have a turn.

Kids will love opening up the Alex Discover My Giant Busy Box, which is jam-packed with an enormous variety of crafting supplies and instructions to make 16 projects. They can turn the included tissue paper, crayons, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, dough, stickers, and more into critters, puppets, collages, and pictures, or use the materials and ideas as a starting point for their own creations. I like that the creature shapes are sturdy enough to use as templates for tracing and cutting out paper versions—to make the fun last even longer.

We’re such big fans of Magna-Tiles that we feature them in our guides to our favorite learning and STEM toys, the best gifts for 4-year-olds, and Valentine’s Day gifts for kids. The colorful plastic tiles with built-in magnets encourage lots of open-ended building and imaginative play. And you can easily add, mix, and match different sets—including the Magna-Tiles Dino World XL 50-Piece Set. For dinosaur-loving kids like my son, this particular collection stands out with its 16 extra-large square and triangle pieces. Some of the pieces are illustrated with tropical leaves and dino footprints; others have extendable tree trunks and attachable magnetic leaves. The six dinosaur figures have body parts that move: For instance, the pteranodon’s wings flap, the T-rex’s mouth opens and closes, and the stegosaurus’s tail can whack an oncoming predator. My son likes moving the neck of the leaf-eating brachiosaurus to reach its food at various heights; he also creates a structure to keep the herbivores safe from the carnivores. If this set is too large, Magna-Tiles also makes a 40-piece,volcano-themed dino set and a five-piece dinos-only set.

When our oldest son turned 3, my husband and I gave him a glossy red Loog Mini Acoustic Guitar. We listen to a lot of music, and his uncles all play the guitar, so I hoped that he’d be keen to connect with his very own musical instrument. We didn’t expect him to play it (he didn’t), but we did hope he’d love it (he did). By the time he turned 5, he had “played” too many rock concerts to count. He was ready for some sit-down instruction—and so was the guitar, which was still in great shape. The Mini is an actual instrument, with nylon strings (the first three strings on a real guitar, making the transition to a 6-string easier), and it’s a comfortable fit for little hands. My kid learned to correctly hold this guitar and how to strum. And he learned even more with the help of the Mini’s included flash cards and the app, which features a tuner and video lessons. (This guitar is suggested for kids 3 and up. The starting age for the next model up, the Pro Acoustic, is 8. And the Pro VI Acoustic is for kids 12 and up.) Even if our son doesn’t grow up to be the next Dave Grohl, the Mini made quite an impression: He asked for the electric version next; it comes complete with a built-in amp and speaker.

Note: Only items purchased directly from Loog are covered by the company’s 30-day return policy and one-year warranty; Loog products purchased elsewhere are subject to those retailers’ respective return and refund policies.

Thanks to Holly & Beau Color Changing Raincoats, my 5-year-old son couldn’t get enough of a downpour. These delightful coats are available in a range of cute prints, including dinosaurs, unicorns, and stars. And the designs on the jacket change color when they get wet (for example, a white dog turns purple), and they revert to their original state when dry again. The color shifts are really fun, but after nearly two years of wear, many of the designs permanently changed color. Still, my son had a ball putting up the hood and tromping through the elements without a care in the world. On one particularly rainy day, he looked up at me and chirped, “This isn’t so bad!” Made by hand and machine-washable, the jacket folds into a neat pouch.

The REI Co-op Kindercone 25 is a soft, roomy mummy bag that’s warm enough for most three-season car camping trips. It’s also plush enough for the hard floor of a school gym—or anywhere else a kid wants to snuggle up for a sleepover or to watch a movie. For our guide to the best sleeping bags for kids, we’ve tested over a dozen camping bags, and the Kindercone 25 is the hands-down favorite. Over years of using it, we’ve never encountered broken zippers or ripped materials. I particularly love the unique sewn-in stuff sack, which is impossible to lose and makes it easy for a kid to stuff the bag on their own. Also, this is a sleeping bag you can buy for a preschooler and still use into their late elementary years or beyond.

A set of Tedco Toys’ Blocks and Marbles is truly timeless. I spent years creating elaborate, Rube Goldberg–like towers with my set in the ’80s. My sister’s five kids have taken over in the decades since. And when my daughter gets a bit older, she’ll be ready to inherit the fun. Handmade by Amish woodworkers in Indiana, the set includes 14 marbles and 45 sloping tracks. And the blocks made of tunneled wood can be stacked and combined however you choose. Together, kids and adults can build marble-racing runs in endless configurations that are as fun to design as they are to use.

“Like Magna-Tiles but bendy.” That’s how my daughter described the Clixo Rainbow Pack. This set has flexible plastic pieces with strong magnetic nodes that snap together with a satisfying click. Clixo pieces can be used to build curving, jointed, movable creations (instead of castles and cubes). The 42-piece Rainbow Pack has a variety of brightly colored, differently shaped pieces. And this set comes with three spinners, to make things like pinwheels, whirligigs, or helicopters. I sometimes divvy up the pack for car rides, and the pieces stack together efficiently for cleanup.

Created by beloved children’s author Mo Willems, Elephant and Piggie are two of the most charming characters in modern children’s literature. I was a school librarian for almost a decade, and I don’t think I met a single kid who didn’t fall in love with these hilarious books when we read them together. They were some of my daughter’s favorite books for years, and they’re perfect for young kids just learning to read on their own. Willems ended the series at 25 books, and Elephant & Piggie: The Complete Collection includes all of them (the set also comes with metal Elephant and Piggie bookends). For the full story-time experience, throw in these stuffed versions of Elephant and Piggie.

Around age 5, many kids are ready for their first pedal bike. The Guardian Ethos 16 Inch Bike, the top pick in our guide to the best first pedal bike, has a lightweight steel frame, lots of adjustability to fit a range of sizes (and grow with your child), and a single handbrake that activates both the front and rear brakes. This distributes the braking power evenly so that it’s impossible to lock up the front brakes and flip over the handlebars; knowing they can stop easily helps give kids more confidence as they learn to ride and experiment with going faster.

In our community, American Ninja Warrior–style classes are popular; they give high-energy kids an introduction to gymnastics and martial arts at an age when they might not be able to focus on traditional training in those practices. This obstacle-course kit brings this type of setup to your backyard. The Gentle Booms Sports Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course includes a sturdy, 56-foot slack line with rings, monkey bars, and rope-ladder obstacles—all of which can hold up to 440 pounds. Provided you have two trees that are 15 to 40 feet apart (or a tree and a playscape), it’s easy to tether the kit and attach the rope obstacles, and then reconfigure them to create new challenges. For more than a year now, the course has proved irresistible to our prospective mini ninjas—and even the adults have taken a crack at it, to assess their potential for American Ninja Warrior fame.

Before I even knew about Bluey—not to mention Bluey’s Big Play—I overheard friends at a dinner party discussing the series. Based on their enthusiasm, I’d assumed it was a new hit drama. I quickly learned that Bluey is a massively popular kids TV show—adults actually enjoy watching, too. Bluey, Bingo, Bandit, and Chilli Heeler are a family of anthropomorphic dogs who live a pretty straightforward family life. The kids play together and fight together and whine and annoy their parents, and their parents respond accordingly (usually better than any real parent ever would). The show is funny, whimsical, smart, and blessedly short (with 15-minute episodes). If you know a Bluey-obsessed kid, tickets for this theatrical adaptation are likely to be a huge hit—and maybe one of their best-ever memories.

This article was edited by Ellen Lee and Kalee Thompson.