If you’ve ever battled crowds to get a coveted toy you know that early October is the perfect time for parents to start holiday shopping. Amazon knows this, which is why the company is holding a second Prime Day sale event—which ends tonight—featuring some great Prime Day toy deals. You can find all the best Prime Day deals here. But if your kids are like my kids, they’re already working on their wish lists. If you say you haven’t already started budgeting, you are either lying, financially irresponsible, or your children are much less demanding than mine are (I know, it’s my fault).
We test and write about toys year-round, cross-reference our own recommendations, and then use price-tracking software to make sure what we’re recommending is actually a good deal. These are all toys that we, and our kids, have tested and loved. You need an Amazon Prime membership to get the Prime Day deal price, but you can sign up for a free trial, and Prime offers plenty of perks.
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Toy Deals
Photograph: Amazon
Magna-Tiles are one of the best return-on-investment toys that I have ever purchased for my children (and one of my perennial recommendations for the Best Stem Toys). Click together the translucent tiles to create 2D or 3D shapes. Once they’ve made each set, the tiles just go into a bin to be remade into farms and zoos and God knows what else for years to come.
Prime Days are always the best time to stock up on Lego sets because the company usually runs a bunch of promotions for around 30 percent off. These bricks are amazing but also expensive (the tolerances are so precise!), so try not to buy them full price, if possible. This is a great price for a basic box of colors. However, if you want to work on a kit, you have a few more options.
Photograph: Particula
If you have a kid who is easily frustrated, then I can’t recommend the GoCube enough (in fact, I recommended it in our gift guide to Smart STEM Toys). A regular Rubik’s Cube just leaves you alone to stew in your own incompetence, but a Bluetooth-connected Rubik’s Cube has glowing edges and a beautiful app to walk you through how to solve one. Once you’ve done that, you can learn all the different algorithms to get your solve time down, and even compete with friends! This price is for the gift pack with the charging stand, cable, and carrying pouch so your kid can even play with it on the car ride home.
It’s seasonal! If you’re taking your kids to a real pumpkin farm this weekend, why not get a Lego one for them to build afterwards? This is a perfect seasonal set with 257 pieces, for kids ages 8 and up.
Photograph: Amazon
This 3D puzzle is one of the best analog gifts. Once completed, the puzzle can be opened 180 degrees to reveal the detailed interior. There are 293 pieces, which should give you a nice, long break from your screens. If the Notre Dame isn’t your favorite beautiful building, there are many other options to choose from, all with overall positive Amazon reviews. —Louryn Strampe
Photograph: Yoto
Multiple friends have purchased the Yoto Player (7/10, WIRED Recommends) so that their kids can play media without having to interact with a screen. The pixelated light-up clock is cute, so it can sit on a nightstand and tell kids when to get up, and you can play audiobooks with insertable cards (you can even create your own content with blank cards). The smaller Yoto Mini ($55) is also on sale.
Photograph: Tonies
This squishy kid’s speaker is great for young kids aged 3 to 7 years because it can withstand drops, spills, and other mishaps. You get five character figures with the speaker (including Spider-Man and Playtime Puppy) and when they are placed on top they trigger related songs or stories. The content is usually under an hour, sometimes much shorter, but you can buy extra characters for all kinds of content, including Paddington Bear, Disney, and Pixar movies. —Simon Hill
Photograph: Kinetic Sand
My children spent a good three to four years totally obsessed with kinetic sand, which is a good return on investment for an affordable stocking stuffer. As my colleague Simon Hill notes (who has similarly obsessed kids), kinetic sand behaves like wet sand, except it looks, feels, and smells nice and isn’t wet. With the caveat that you will have to confine it to a table or play area and/or invest in a robot vacuum, your kid will be able to mold and shape it to their heart’s content.
Photograph: Simon Hill
I’m a big kid and this is one of the best Star Wars gifts I ever got, but any fan will love it. These helmets look good enough to satisfy collectors but are way cheaper than high-end movie replicas, so your kids can play with them. Looks like Amazon has discounts on a bunch of other Black Series helmets, including the Scout Trooper ($72) and The Mandalorian ($70). —Simon Hill
Photograph: Amazon
This clever logic puzzle challenges you to fit Tetris-pieces into a three-dimensional puzzle board. With 100 3D puzzles that require spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills to beat, this will keep kids aged 8 and up busy for quite a while. They get tougher as you progress, but never too hard. Maker Educational Insights offers a bunch of other brain teasing puzzles specifically for younger kids, including Kanoodle Genius (also on sale). —Simon Hill
Regardless of how much my Furby creeped me out as a kid back in the 90s, I believe owning one is a rite of passage. This is the latest version, which comes with over 600 responses, color-changing lights, dance moves, and more. It also comes with voice activation, which unlocks five different commands (without the need to connect to the internet). —Brenda Stolyar
If you remember these digital pets from the ’90s you might fancy giving one to your kid. Let them get a taste of what it’s like to care for something, feed, clean, and play with it, and never get any thanks! Be warned, though, when I got one for my daughter, she started insisting I look after it when she was at school. —Simon Hill
Gaming Deals
Photograph: Simon Hill
Originally called Settlers of Catan, this immersive strategy game is all about gathering and trading resources to build roads, settlements, and cities on a randomly generated board of hexagonal tiles. To collect enough points for a victory requires the right strategy and some luck with dice rolls. My kids love the trading and the robber mechanic, which allows you to steal cards from your opponents and block their resources (though it can cause fall outs). The game is perfect for three or four players and usually lasts around an hour. There are various expansions and a new version called Catan: New Energies (7/10, WIRED Recommends) if you ever want more. —Simon Hill
If I were to guess where my anxiety disorder stems from, I’d point back to this game. The whole point is to make your way past different obstacles to get to the fridge for a midnight snack, without waking up Dad—all of which depends on the amount of times you click the included alarm clock. Since it’s randomized, you’re holding your breath hoping he won’t shoot up out of bed and send you back to your room. —Brenda Stolyar
Photograph: Amazon
If you just can’t get enough of Catan (formerly known as Settlers of Catan), and now your kids want to join in, there is now a junior version for kids as young as 5. Your swashbuckling kindergartener can learn how to trade with—and rob—people by playing as miniature pirates on the high seas. They will also learn how to argue. A lot.
Photograph: Simon Hill
You must decorate the royal palace for the King of Portugal using colorful, decorative tiles, inspired by the Moorish designs in the Alhambra palace in Southern Spain. Pick tiles each round to fill your game board, but plan carefully to get high scoring sets and patterns. Like many of the best family board games, it’s quick to learn but has real strategic depth. —Simon Hill
I have fond memories of playing Pretty Pretty Princess growing up. Whenever my older brother would babysit me as a kid, I’d force him to play with me. By the end of the game, he’d be sporting clip-on earrings, necklaces, and even the crown. I had the traditional version, but younger Brenda would’ve loved this Disney Princess edition, which comes with characters like Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, and Aurora. —Brenda Stolyar
Photograph: Simon Hill
One of the best family board games for young kids, Labyrinth is simple enough for anyone to grasp. The game board is a maze, and your challenge is to collect a set of treasures dictated by the cards you are dealt. This game was designed by a German psychologist, and the fun comes from the ability to change the maze by pushing a tile onto the board, which displaces another each turn. You can carve out a route for yourself, but it is also worth thinking about how to block your opponents, and the best moves do both. —Simon Hill
This is another game that definitely fueled my anxiety as a kid, but I look back and laugh at all the fun I had with my friends while playing it as a kid. When you start the timer, you have to fit all the shapes into the matching spots as quickly as possible. Once you’re done, have to turn the switch off. But if you don’t get to all the shapes in time, the tray pops up and the pieces fly everywhere. —Brenda Stolyar
Photograph: Simon Hill
This classic board game has lovely steam engine styling and rules even young kids can quickly grasp, making it an ideal introduction to more complex board games. The aim is to claim railway routes across the US and Canada using your colorful plastic rail cars. You spend cards to claim routes, and there are bonus points for connecting certain destinations, but you can get blocked by other players. If you’ve played and liked the original, Ticket to Ride Europe ($28) is also on sale.
This continues to be my all-time favorite board game. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve always been incredibly nosey (even as a kid) and loved asking questions or if it’s that the concept is simple to grasp. Simply choose a character from the stack of cards, ask yes or no questions about the character, and turn over the cards that don’t match the answer to guess who the opponent picked.—Brenda Stolyar
Photograph: Clixo
This irresistible construction kit made our Best STEM Toys guide and is a fantastic gift for kids of all ages. Clixo’s colorful, versatile, magnetic pieces snap together, enabling you to build all kinds of three-dimensional shapes, from crowns to cats. The pieces stack neatly and are very compact when packed away. They are also durable and washable, and you can play with them anywhere—you don’t need a table. Clixo kits are suitable for kids aged 4 and up, but teens and even adults will get a kick out of these too. —Simon Hill
Photograph: Orzly
If your kids also love playing on the Nintendo Switch, it’s a good idea to have a case when they carry it to and fro. We like this one because it’s affordable and has extra pockets for an extra controller or cables and a sleeve for game cartridges. It also comes in a wide variety of fun colors.
Photograph: Amazon; Getty Images
If your kid loves to clean like mine does, and is begging you to let him use the broom twice his size, this Melissa & Doug set can make after-dinner cleaning way easier by giving them a set that’s their size. It includes a miniature broom, mop, duster, a hand broom, a dust pan, and a stand to hold all these handy cleaning toys. They really do work—when my son decides he still absolutely needs the real-sized broom, I borrow his set to get the job done.
Photograph: Amazon
Get the kids into art and sculpture early with this mold-and-bake polymer clay set. It includes 57 different colors for them to play with, and opens up a world of creativity for your kiddos. WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson says the things his kids built with this set didn’t always hold up, but that’s not a bad thing—it’s just part of the learning process.
This non-toxic modeling gunk is endless fun and comes in a multitude of colors, though you know it will end up as a multicolored ball eventually. There is nothing in Play-Doh to worry about, so you can let your wee ones get as mucky and creative as they like. This is a decent deal for 36 three-ounce pots in different colors. —Simon Hill
Photograph: Amazon
Your kids can create polished gemstones with this rock tumbling kit. If you want to spark their interest in geology and fossils, this could be a good way to do it. It comes with polishing grits, an assortment of rough gemstones, and a few other bits and pieces to get you started, but you can also chuck in the rocks you find on walks. —Simon Hill
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