Holiday Haul: Educational Gifts for Kids of ALL Ages | Christmas Gift Ideas for Kids

[Music] hey everybody Welcome to the wock way I'm Jessica today's video is going to be a holiday haul I'm going to be sharing a ton of educational gifts that I purchased this season with all of the kids in my life in mine um I have a handful of nieces and nephews and then we also buy for some of Emily's friends so I always always always do educational gifts everybody who gets a gift from me knows that at this point um so I thought I would share with you what I purchased to maybe give you some ideas for the kids in your life everything that you're going to see today was either purchased from Amazon or paper pie formerly known as Usborne and I W make sure that I leave a link in the description so that you can easily access everything that you see we are going to start off with the things for the youngest one um that I purchased for which is my newest nephew um I got him a twoin one talking ball this is a motion activated speaker it counts 1 through 10 it says ABC sings The Alphabet Song and cheers so it's just like a plushy um soft ball that has all this educational activities within it I also got him two Melissa and Doug chunky puzzles these were some of Emily's favorite when she was younger Melissa and Doug puzzle stand the test of time we love everything we've ever purchased from them so I got him the farm animals and the construction and then the last thing I got for him are these Modo I think is how you say it um it's dough and they're so cute because they're kind of all in one and they have uh three different colors of dough on the outside of the containers there's all these little stamps that are with them and they come with little wooden play toys um they're BPA free fragrance free it just seems like a really fun way for him to be able to have some sensory play next I have my sister's kids we always do themed gifts like she buys themed for Emily and I buy themed for her um son and daughter and we typically will tell like we pick the theme for our own kids so we're like hey this is what our kids are into this year um and we kind of go from there and I love that she lets me do that because I love a theme gift like love love love so the theme that she picked for her two kids this year was Greek mythology which you guys know that I love that uh so I got each of them a game so for my nephew I got him the top trunks Greeks myths for my niece I got her the Olympus lunacy then I got each of them a um graphic novel Series so for my nephew I got him the heroes and training collection it is the first four books and then for my niece I got her the goddess girls again the first four books then I got each of them their own kind of Greek myth uh treasury if you will for my nephew I got him The Illustrated stories of Greek myths for my niece I got her the tales of Brave and Brilliant girls from the Greek myths and then I grabbed each of them a Greek myth magic painting book because I know that my sister really likes to do um audio books and like coloring or painting so I think her plan is to probably do the Percy Jackson series as an audio so I thought that the painting books would give them something to do with their hands while they listened um and then for some of Emily's friends I got most of them a book of some kind and then some sort of activity kind of Kit to go with it based off of their interest so we have a human body interest so we got the big book of body and I paired that with the squishy human body uh science I got the science scribble book and paired that with the organic science lab uh let's see we had a weather so I got the look inside the wild weather and paired that with the storm watchers lab and I maybe I should correct that they're not necessarily interested in we this gift for this particular kiddo um they had a hard time with the Hurricanes that happened here in Florida recently so we thought this would be a good gift because a lot of kids do better when they have knowledge about those kinds of things so that was more of a we're going to give you extra knowledge versus um something you're interested in hopefully it goes over well Emily picked it out cuz she knows that that would have helped her in that situation all right we had one interested in bugs so we have the big book of bugs and the bug playground we have a stem technology lover so I paired the technology scribble book with the stem 101 35 amazing activities and then the last one um just said that she wanted a microscope so we got her a microscope like a learner's first microscope and then I decided to pair that with the SE inside the microscopic World okay so that is all of the gifts for the kids in our lives but then I thought I would also share the gifts that I bought with um we call them white elephant or secret Santa or whatever where you take a Gift Rap it it and then you all you know pass it around until you end up with one um we do that at a lot of different places um so we have like Kevin's family and then my mom and my dad um separate and then Emily has a few friends that she does it with and anyway we do it a lot and I kind of have like a go-to system for that I always always buy a card game and then I pair it with something so I will either pair it with our favorite card holders so this is a two pack um and they hold quite a few cards they're great for games like Uno where you collect a bunch of cards um so I either pair it with this depending on you know if the game is a game where you would hold cards in your hand or I pair it with our favorite card shuffler um especially if the game is one that has like the double deck you know where there's like more than 50 cards this is what I would pair it with so that is pretty much my go-to gift for every white elephant me Emily and Kevin just sit down and we're like these are some of our favorite card games from the year and then I buy card holders or card shufflers and we package it and that's what it is so for this year's um top games that Emily and Kevin and I picked to gift we have taco cat goat cheese pizza um I'm going to pair this with the card shuffler because you don't really hold a lot of cards in your hand like you like you would need the card holder um Uno flip of course any of the Unos would work um last year we did Uno wild the year before that I think we did Regular Uno but this year's Emily's favorite was Uno flip so I'm going to pair this with the card holders blink I think this is going to be the last year we're going to be able to buy this because we have done blink at every one of our white elephant exchanges at this point except one because this is Emily's favorite game um and I pair this one with a card shuffler color addict this is another really fun game um this is the first year that it's being gifted but we're going to keep gifting it it reminds me of blink but kind of like a step up so if your kids love blink but you're looking for something a little more difficult this would be a great step up for them and I'm going to pair this with the card shuffler uh let's see we have po Pand pandamonium uh this is just a really really fun dog game I'm pairing this some of the card shuffler as well hurting cats it is by the same creators so depending on whether you're going somewhere that they prefer dogs or cats both of these games would be fun this one is six plus this one's eight plus um 2 to six players four to 12 players so if you're going somewhere that has you know larger families the cat one may be better smaller families the dog one may be better they're both a lot of fun um and I'm pairing both of them with the card shuffler and then our last two games uh we have Sky Joe which has become a family favorite I would pair this one with a card shelfer because it is definitely a double deck it's a lot of cards to try to shuffle and then if you already love Sky Jo or you're going somewhere where people love Sky Jo and you want to do a card game then my next choice is don't go boom it is a very similar gaml to Sky Jo with a little bit of differences because now you have like bombs and things that go along with it um both of them are like seven to eighty olds so pretty much every body can play two to two to six players eight maybe you could get away with eight on Sky Joe um but you could also add another Skye or another uh don't go boom and you can play with even more players like if you added another set in so both of them could be very large players um and because they're both a lot of cards card shufflers for both of those really the only ones that I typically do um the card holders for is like Uno Phase 10 uh we love these for anything that you know you're going to have like 10 or more cards in your hand at a time that you need to see everything else I pair the card shuffler with because it's so fantastic to be able to shuffle like the double decks or to even be able to let your four five and six-year-olds who haven't figured out how to shuffle yet you know participate in shuffle cards uh if you have older people who maybe have arthritis and aren't able to shuffle anymore they can still shuffle cards and nobody has to feel like they can't Shuffle and deal I mean Emily's been shuffling and dealing since she was five because of the card shuffler she still can't shuffle cards very well uh but the card shuffler makes it easy for her so that is our go-to white elephant gift always if you are looking for more card games I will link my blog post for card games in the description so that you can look and get even more ideas for maybe your white elephant party that you're going to be attending this holiday season now I would love it if you would tell me that I'm not alone and that you too are quirky in your gift giving and that you gift educational gifts and theme gifts if so let me know some of your favorites in the comments [Music]