(An earlier version of this post originally appeared on Work It Mom / Milk and Cookies; I’m in the gradual and painstaking process of moving a number of them to this site.)
Last week, Stimey asked on Twitter for gift ideas for a 9-year-old boy. She was asking for a birthday, but the holidays are coming up. I’ve had two 9-year-old boys so far, and they do vary from boy to boy, but here are some of the things that have been successes:
(photo from Amazon.com)
Magic tricks. If you can stand the “Mom, look at this! …Oh, wait. Okay, now look! …Oh, wait. Okay, NOW,” it’s a great gift.
(photo from Amazon.com)
Sculpey modeling compound. This is Play-Doh for big kids: it’s significantly more expensive, but is also better to work with for fine details, and it doesn’t set until it’s baked. At our house the rule is that we make BIG things with Play-Doh, and we use Sculpey for small, careful projects.
(photo from Amazon.com)
InstaMorph. [Originally I linked to ShapeLock, because that’s what we tried, but when I looked on Amazon to see if they had it yet, I got results for InstaMorph, which looks like the same thing but without the high shipping cost.] This is not the most intriguing photo, but this stuff is AWESOME. It’s this hard plastic stuff, and when you put it in warm water it softens like modeling compound. And when it cools, it’s back to being hard plastic. We first bought the sample [of ShapeLock] (it’s free, but with $5 shipping, so I find it happier to think of it as a $5 sample with free shipping), and liked it so much we bought the biggest tub of it. The sample is enough to give as a small gift, since the big tub is a lot of money if you’re not sure if the child will like it.
(photo from Amazon.com)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. All the books in this series were well-liked at our house [by the kids, I mean], but I’m highlighting the journal-style one because normally I don’t think of journals as good gifts for boys, but this is one William saved his OWN MONEY for. When my boy-girl twins are older, I plan to do one birthday where Elizabeth gets a diary with a lock, and Edward will get this Boy Journal. [We’re doing that THIS VERY CHRISTMAS!]
(photo from Amazon.com)
Plasma ball. My dad chose this gift for the boys, and it was the hit of the party both times. It’s one of those things where when you touch the globe, “lightning” goes from the center to your finger.
(photo from Amazon.com)
Rock hammer. I don’t mind telling you that this gift scares me. I don’t even like the LOOK of it. But Paul chose it for William’s 9th birthday, and William has spent many, MANY happy hours shattering rocks in the driveway. We also got him multiple pairs of safety goggles, and a jeweler’s loupe for looking up-close. Scariest/best gift ever. [This was a long-term hit.]
(photo from Amazon.com)
Rubik’s Twist. My first boy liked Rubik’s Cubes, but my second boy found them frustrating. He had a lot more fun with the Twist, which doesn’t need to be solved and can just be played with.
(photo from Amazon.com)
Chemistry set. This is one of William’s ideas, which we decided NOT to get him—but we’re reconsidering for Christmas. [By Christmas, he was no longer asking for it.] I was worried about two things: (1) He’d find as boring as I found my own childhood chemistry set, and/or (2) he’d take the finish right off the table with it.
You probably know this already, but just in case:
If you want to make anything large-ish from sculpey (or even small but with a big solid base piece, like a body of an animal or something), ball up a piece of aluminum foil and use it as a core with sculpey all around the outside. This is good because a) it uses less of the expensive stuff! and b) the foil helps it cook all the way through, rather than having a big blob that only is solid on the outside and might do weird things like crack or whatever.
Whew! I had 2 nephews just turn 8 and was completely at a loss. Thanks for saving my bacon, or at least making my bacon a lot easier to figure out. Huh.