Make holiday gift-giving dollars for kids go further with educational gifts that are both fun and beneficial for little learners’ development. School Zone Publishing offers unique, high-quality educational tools that inspire learning and creativity and gifts that support classroom learning.
Why choose educational gifts for kids?
Educational gifts that encourage kids to learn while playing establish a positive connection that can last a lifetime. Benefits include building creativity, curiosity, and cognitive development, often in tandem with developing problem-solving, social-emotional, and fine motor skills. They sharpen concentration, too!
School Zone products, designed and developed with teacher input, align with these benefits and age-based developmental milestones.
Holiday Gift Guide by Age Group
Ages 2-4: Early Learners
The littlest learners need tools that introduce foundational concepts that get them ready for reading and writing in fun ways—gifts that encourage learning and play. These make some of the best gifts for 2-4-year-olds. Here are a few ideal skill-building gifts for kids:
• Board books – They introduce babies and toddlers to reading “practices” including holding a book, turning pages, and seeing words on pages. They are also more durable than storybooks. School Zone offers a quintet of seasonally-themed board books: Silly, Chilly Zoo, Trim the Tree 1,2,3, Guess Who? Colors & Shapes, Christmas Surprise, and Christmas ABCs. Another offering is the Bible-themed 3-pack of mini readiness board books: Go-Togethers, Opposites, and Matching.
• Early workbooks – These build skills that make both reading and math come more easily and naturally. Here are a few: My First Coloring Fun Workbook, Colors & Shapes Preschool Workbook, Thinking Skills Preschool Workbook, and Fun and Games Preschool Workbook.
• Playsets - A take-anywhere package such as the On the Go Activity Playset for ages 3-5 or the Get Ready Preschool Learning Set for ages 3-6, delivers lots of high-value learning. Both include lots of tools to help preschoolers master important math and reading readiness skills and develop the fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination needed for writing and more. These sets include a traditional workbook, a Write & Reuse workbook and/or flash cards, coloring pad, skill practice pads, and 8 pages of colorful stickers that also serve as manipulatives that further develop hand agility. Little ones learn the alphabet, numbers 1-12, colors, shapes, beginning sounds, matching, categorizing, and much more.
Ages 5-7: Kindergarten and First Grade
This age group is learning and reinforcing foundational math and reading skills they will continue to build on each year. Using a variety of learning products including workbooks, learning kits, flash cards, puzzles, and games will keep kids engaged.
• Workbooks
Kindergarten Write & Reuse Workbook in spiral-bound format lies flat for ease of use and gives kids lots of space for completing activities at their own pace. It introduces kids to the alphabet, numbers, graphing, early math, and more with a fun, easy way to practice!
Big Reading 1-2 covers a variety of skills from phonics to parts of speech to reading comprehension. Success in reading propels success in virtually every subject.
Fun and Games Kindergarten Workbook and Fun and Games First Grade Workbook help kids learn super fun facts and stretch their imagination as they explore creative, colorful activities and prepare for school success. Little learners even learn, step-by-step, how to draw fun, familiar creatures and objects! These workbooks are packed with hidden pictures, mazes, dot-to-dots, codes, puzzles, drawing and coloring activities, and more.
• Games
Ages 8-10: Elementary Learning
At these ages, kids are developing skills that prepare them for higher-level math, science, and language arts. Second, third, and fourth graders benefit from educational gifts that expand critical thinking, comprehension and problem-solving skills. Excellent choices are:
Big Science Workbook for grades 2 and 3 (ages 7-9) is a great STEM friend. This 320-page workbook also comes in traditional and spiral-bound
Multiplication Facts Made Easy Workbook for grades 3-4, uses arrays, money, and everyday objects to help kids understand how, why, and when multiplication happens. They’ll even encounter an occasional riddle!
Math Basics Workbook for grade 4 encourages kids to practice multiplication and division, fractions, decimals and more, as friendly ocean creatures add smiles and a splash of color to almost every page. It’s a fun approach to serious problem-solving.
Top Picks for Fun and Learning
Full Learning Programs – With the Preschool Full Learning Program
Kindergarten Full Learning Program,
with a similar variety of contents, geared toward preparing them for first-grade success. Developed by teachers, these comprehensive sets take a classroom approach, covering a full year of learning, with lots of ways to master essential skills and keep kids with different learning styles focused and motivated. They also include 1 free month of online learning with Anywhere Teacher.
Complete Learning Workbooks – School Zone’s 320-page “big” workbooks offer comprehensive learning across math, reading, science, and more in age-appropriate ways. They build confidence and add challenge, making them high-value gifts that are perennial favorites.
Many of these workbooks that offer hours and hours of fun and learning, now come in two formats: traditional spine with perforated tear-out pages for sharing and spiral-bound with pages that lay flat for ease of work and maximum concentration. When opened out flat, this format can also fold over on itself, in half, to make a 7.75” X 10.75” lap-sized work surface while traveling or waiting somewhere without access to a table. Workbooks in these dual formats include:
• Big Preschool – (traditional) (spiral bound) Bold, bright colors, and illustrations ease little ones into learning without feeling overwhelmed. Lessons focus on must-know readiness basics, including colors, shapes, the alphabet, basic phonics, early math, and more, and activities appear in order of increasing difficulty, so preschoolers stay challenged until the end, constantly expanding their skills.
• Big Kindergarten – (traditional) (spiral bound) Designed to give kids all the basics for kindergarten, it also helps set the stage for first grade. Cover to cover it’s packed with colorful, creative practice in early math and reading skills. Logic and critical thinking grow, too.
• Big First Grade – (traditional) (spiral bound) Big-kid learning begins and this workbook presents hours and hours of playful practice across the first-grade curriculum—language arts, math, science, and social studies.
• Big Second Grade – (traditional) (spiral bound) Kids will learn and reinforce many important second-grade skills as they count, identify, estimate, create, and measure. What is a verb? What is regrouping? How fast do plants grow? Everything from numbers to shapes to writing to weather is covered.
Budget-Friendly, Educational Stocking Stuffers for Kids
Small and affordable gifts for early education that pack a big learning punch without breaking the bank belong on every family’s gift list. Here are a few you can tuck snugly into stockings:
• Learning Cards - Bedtime Alphabet Light-Up Learning Cards are creative, interactive cards that make learning fun by day and night. They come with a mini flashlight to shine through cutouts to make uppercase letters and shapes dance on floors, ceilings, and walls. By day, use the cutouts as stencils.
Get Ready Game Cards Farm Animal Rummy & Dino Dig, Get Ready Game Cards Go Fish & Memory Match Farm,
and Get Ready Game Cards Three-Letter Words & Slapjack Farm, deliver lots of learning mixed with big smiles.
• Flash Cards - Sight Words Flash Cards help kids take the first steps toward reading. Numbers 0-25, Numbers 1-100, Addition 0-12, Subtraction 0-12, Multiplication 0-12, and Division 0-12 help reinforce skills all along the early math path.
• Little Busy Books – My First Dot-to-Dots Grades P-K, My First Mazes Grades P-K, and My First Try-n-Spy Grades K-1 are 48-page tablet workbooks that use some of kids favorite activities to build multiple skills.
Tips for choosing the right educational gifts
• Select educational gifts for holiday gift-giving based on a child’s age, interests, and learning needs. It’s natural for a child to be ahead of peers in some areas and behind in others. Consider where they might need to catch up and where they might need more challenge to hold boredom at bay. At-home learning can be extremely flexible and customized.
• Balance fun and education to keep kids engaged without feeling pressured. Educational toys and products go a long way in building academic success. But adults need occasional breaks from work, and kids need them even more frequently. It can sometimes be hard to determine when a task is perhaps too much for the time. Try starting with 10 minutes and working up to 20. Products that have built-in rewards like stickers and completion certificates for display can help motivate kids.
Choose gifts, when possible, that grow with your child. A workbook or learning program—whether physical or digital—that covers more than one age, grade, or skill level maximizes your investment. It lasts longer, delivers continuity, and shows kids how far they’ve come.
Shop now for gifts or kids who love to learn and get ahead on holiday gift-giving. Explore School Zone Publishing’s full range of educational gifts for kids this holiday season.
