The Rainbow Loom MEGA Combo is a loom kit for a girl hooked on swapping friendship bracelets.
She can copy the patterns her friends wear, then work out new color mixes of her own. Over winter break, she can stock up on finished bands to hand out when classes start again.
A girl who invents stories about best friends can build this LEGO Friends treehouse as their hangout.
Autumn, Leo, Zac and Liann come with it, so each of her stories has its own cast. Once the bricks are together, she can stage a new plot for them every afternoon.
Peony the Squishmallows unicorn is a huggable plush for a unicorn-loving girl at Christmas.
She can give Peony a spot on her desk chair and pull her close while she reads. Unlike a figurine kept on a shelf, this unicorn is meant to be squeezed and carried along.
A craft-loving girl decorates tiles with this 4M magnetic tile art kit, then shows them off on the fridge.
Since her finished pieces are magnetic, she can rearrange them whenever she makes a new one. Over Christmas break, the kitchen table can serve as her studio while she works.
This LEGO Creator parrot set gives a girl who loves remaking things several animals from the same bricks.
She starts with the parrot from its 253 pieces, then pulls it apart for the next animal. Over Christmas break, that leaves her a fresh build waiting whenever the last one is done.
This Switch edition of Minecraft works for a girl who likes designing places she can walk through.
She rearranges her bedroom for fun, so here she can lay out a whole house and garden. On Christmas afternoon, she can start a hedge maze behind the house.
Spirograph Deluxe Set geometric pattern drawing kit
Arts and crafts
Geometry meets art in the Spirograph Deluxe Set, a good fit for a girl into math and color.
She can switch pen colors between loops and see how each change shifts the finished shape. At the kitchen table, her favorite designs can become gift tags for the family's presents.
This fischertechnik pinball kit suits a patient builder who enjoys watching a pile of parts become a game.
Unlike a boxed board game, she plays on a table she put together herself. During the slow days after Christmas, she can keep a paper scoreboard taped beside her finished machine.
Rush Hour is a ThinkFun puzzle game for a girl who likes working out tricky problems on her own.
She sits down alone and plans each move until a stubborn challenge finally opens up. Marked for ages 8 to adult, it also lets a parent take on the same puzzle after dinner.
This Lilo & Stitch figurine set suits a Stitch fan with an empty shelf waiting to be filled.
She can pose the characters as a scene she knows by heart, then reshuffle them for a new story. After school, the windowsill becomes her stage for the next one.
A sketchbook doodler can spray soft color across her pages with the Crayola Marker Airbrush.
Since the color still starts from a marker, it fits right into the way she already draws. On a rainy Saturday, she can fade a sunset behind the comic heroes she drew in pencil.
The Crayola Create 'N Carry caddy lets a doodler who sketches everywhere bring her coloring supplies along.
She never has to wait for a table, since everything she draws with stays together in the case. While her brother finishes swim practice, she can fill a page with poolside cartoons and pack up before he is dry.
Planning outfits the night before school, a style-minded girl can make beaded bracelets to go with each look she puts together.
Over the Christmas break, she can design a matching bracelet for her best friend to wear when classes start again. On New Year's Eve, she can pick party colors and wear a fresh bracelet to the countdown.
The Fashion Angels sketchbook gives a fashion-minded girl a place to design the clothes she imagines.
She studies the sleeves and hemlines of every look she sees, so here she draws her own. Over Christmas break, she can sketch the dress she pictures for a party and color it in.
PlayMonster's Five Crowns is a rummy card game for a girl ready to join the grown-ups' table.
Marked for ages 8 and up, it has her playing by the same rules as the adults. On Christmas afternoon, she can shuffle, deal the first hand and call for another round.
Moose Games CrunchLabs Squirrel Dash tabletop game for groups
Squirrel Dash is a CrunchLabs board game a nine-year-old girl can bring out whenever relatives visit.
She can call out whose turn it is and keep the whole table playing. On Christmas evening, cousins can pull up chairs for a rematch once the dishes are cleared.
This Ravensburger carnival jigsaw puzzle is for a girl who studies every corner of a picture.
Ravensburger rates it for ages 9 and up, and she finds each spot by matching colors and edges. She can sort the pieces into piles on a tray and finish a section each evening.
This LEGO minifigure jigsaw puzzle from Chronicle Books fits a nine-year-old who knows her minifigures by sight.
The maker labels it for ages 9 and up, so the challenge matches where she is now. Over Christmas break, it can stay on a card table while she adds pieces between meals.
Gravity Maze is a marble puzzle for a 9-year-old girl who likes to plan before she acts.
She builds a route with the towers, drops the marble and sees right away if her idea works. A stubborn challenge can stay on the table until after Christmas dinner.
Hasbro Gaming Guess Who? guessing game with Pokémon
Guess Who? in its Pokémon edition hands a Pokémon fan a guessing game full of familiar faces.
What she already knows about the characters becomes her clues, so she can challenge a parent or cousin. After Christmas dinner, the game can come out on the cleared table for a rematch.
Hasbro Gaming's Sorry! is a race-to-home board game for a nine-year-old with a sly competitive streak.
She races her pawns home and picks the right moment to send a rival back to start. After Christmas dinner, the whole household can pull up chairs for her rematch.
A Thames & Kosmos gumball machine kit gives a curious builder her own candy dispenser to put together.
She likes knowing why things move, and here every gumball's route depends on how she built it. After Christmas dinner, she can show relatives how her finished machine sends each gumball along.
Blue Marble National Geographic butterfly-raising nature set
This National Geographic butterfly kit and bug catcher gives a backyard explorer creatures to raise and to find.
Because she already hunts for beetles and ants, the catcher lets her hold one for a closer look before letting it go. The butterfly kit is the slower project, with caterpillars she can check on each morning before school.
The Carson BugView gives a backyard insect watcher a magnifying catcher for looking at bugs up close.
She scoops up a ladybug or ant and studies its spots and antennae, then lets it go. That suits her habit of crouching down beside every crawler she spots on the patio.
Blue Marble National Geographic indoor ant habitat
This Blue Marble National Geographic ant habitat lets an insect lover keep a colony of diggers indoors.
Rather than reading about how ants live, she watches the workers carve out the answers herself. Before school, she can check which tunnel grew longest and mark it on a chart.
Dropping things is half of learning to juggle, and nobody minds in a hallway.
This Klutz book walks her through the basics one step at a time, so the energy that has her bouncing off the walls over winter break goes into drop, pick up, try again, until her hands find the rhythm.
The Phantom Tollbooth gives a nine-year-old reader a novel of her own for the long winter break.
The publisher rates it for ages 8 to 12, so it sits right at her reading level. She can read a chapter or so each afternoon and tell the family where the story went.
Klutz LEGO Mini Golf hands a brick fan a putting course she builds hole by hole.
Building comes before playing, so every round on the kitchen table runs through holes she planned herself. Afterward the bricks pull apart, and her next layout can be trickier than the last.
Magna-Tiles microMAGS is a magnetic tile set for a girl who invents shapes as she goes.
Since the pieces hold by magnets, she can turn a flat star into a standing tower without starting over. After Christmas, she can spread a village across the coffee table, then take it apart for another.
This karaoke machine gives a hairbrush-microphone singer a proper way to perform her favorite songs at home.
She sings along to the radio anyway, so here she picks the playlist and leads every chorus. On Christmas Eve, the grandparents can take seats on the couch for her opening number.
That’s all 17 small treatsThat’s all 20 everyday giftsThat’s the only gift in “Bigger gifts”
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Questions and answers
What should you get a girl who wants to build something she can keep playing with afterward?
The fischertechnik Pinball kit is for a girl who builds the machine and then plays rounds on it, while the LEGO golf course kit is for a girl who sets up her own mini golf course and putts around it with friends.
What works for a girl who checks on things every morning to see what changed overnight?
A girl who checks on things every morning is who the National Geographic butterfly set is for: she raises butterflies and watches them change day by day. The caterpillars usually come later, once the weather is warm enough to let the butterflies go, so it is a gift to look forward to.
Is there something for a girl who would rather build a world than race to the end of a level?
The Minecraft Switch game is for a girl who builds rather than races: she plays Minecraft on the Nintendo Switch, putting up houses and exploring on her own or with a sibling alongside.
Set it once: each year in early November, an alarm with a link to the newest picks.
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· We recheck every pick daily and swap out anything that’s no longer available.Rechecked daily
Chosen by our team from store data and what readers pick, not hands-on tests. Nothing is paid to be on this list. Recall notices checked . How we pick
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What changed recently
Updated Nov 1
RemovedMonster High Skelita Calaveras fashion doll
Removedwater bottle decorating kit with a mermaid theme