The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (2025)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (1)

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When kids turn 6, it's cool to see them develop their own interests, be it art, STEM, writing or DIY kits. The best gifts for kids of this age nurture these newfound passions in a way that meets them at their level.

For even more editor-approved ideas, try our new AI-powered gift finder.

But that doesn't mean that all toys geared towards 6-year-olds are created equal — or that kids will like whatever you throw at them. To help separate the best of the best, the Good Housekeeping Institute tests toys with toy experts, parents and, most importantly, 6-year-olds themselves, with winners earning a Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award. This year, these rose to the top as the best toys and gifts for 6-year-olds in 2024.

Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award Winner

Just My Style Tinsel Hair Stylist Studio

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (4)

Now, kids can get in on the "fairy hair" trend without a trip to the salon. This kit comes with nine bundles of tinsel strands that are each 10 inches long, so they can be cut to fit. It also comes with some other fun add-ons, like hair beads, elastics, clips and hair pins. Good Housekeeping kid testers say they loved the way it looked! Ages 6+

RELATED: The Good Housekeeping Best Toy Awards

Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award Winner

Tightrope Game

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (5)

This game involves balancing marbles on twisted rubber bands, which means it tests players' logic and hand-eye coordination. Good Housekeeping Institute testers say this game is truly a challenge and is great for those who like to flex those problem-solving muscles. Ages 6+

RELATED: The Best Board Games for Kids

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Top Gift Year After Year

Crazy Forts Master Builder

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (6)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (7)

Let them build something they can actually crawl inside with this fort-building set. It comes with rods and connectors, plus plans to help them make structures like an igloo or a rocket ship if they don't want to come up with their own designs. You do have to provide the sheets to drape over them. Ages 5+

Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award Winner

Skillmatics Storybook Art Kit

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (8)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (9)

This kit helps kids realize their dreams of writing their own illustrated stories, and it includes helpful items to get them started, like prompts, suggested vocabulary lists, stickers and markers. Kid tester especially loved filling out the "about the author" section. It comes in different themes, including adventures, animals, space and unicorns and princesses. Ages 5+

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Air Hogs Zero Gravity Sprint RC Car

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (10)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (11)

This car may be small, but kids will be wowed when it drives up the wall and even onto the ceiling! And yet, it won't damage the paint on the walls. Ages 4+

Good Housekeeping Kids' Book Award Winner

'Dog vs. Strawberry'

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (12)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (13)

Good Housekeeping Institute kid testers were tickled by the premise of this book: When a dog gets a strawberry as a treat, he decides to race it instead of it eat. The dog runs in circles, and the berry just sits there. “The energized tone makes it so much fun to read this book aloud,” says one judge. Ages 4–8

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Hello Kitty Dreamland Sleeping Plush

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (14)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (15)

It's Hello Kitty's 50th anniversary this year, and what better way to celebrate than adding another plush to a collection. This one is really big — 18 inches — which makes it perfect for snuggling up to at night. "It's so cute, big, soft and huggable," one kid tester said. In addition to Hello Kitty, there are friends available, like Kuromi and Cinnamoroll. Ages 0+

For Roblox Fans

Fingerlings Adopt Me Animals

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (16)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (17)

This toy combines two of their favorite things: Fingerlings and Roblox's red-hot Adopt Me game. Kids can now collect their virtual friends in real life. You can get either a puppy or a bat dragon, and each one has the 40-or-more reactions and sounds that Fingerlings are known for. Ages 5+

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3Doodler Start+ Essentials 3D Pen Set

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (18)

Introduce them to the world of 3D printing with this pen set. It creates plastic that hardens immediately but is not hot to touch! Kid testers really liked it, and even their parents noticed how much time they spent engaging with it. One note: Keep the end of the stylus clean, so it won't jam up. Ages 6+

Fun With DIY Puffy Charms

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (19)

For kids who like to personalize everything, this kit comes with what they'd need to make more than 130 puffy stickers. They can then use them to make charm bracelets, decorate notebooks, dress up shoelaces and more. Ages 6+

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Using one of five free apps, kids can code Dash to hurl LEGO bricks like a catapult, get it to act like an animal or drive like a delivery truck. As kids grow and really get into coding, they can do more advanced things using coding concepts like loops, events, conditions and sequences. Ages 5+

RELATED: The Best STEM Toys for Kids

Marching Band Two-Sided Puzzle

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (21)

You get two puzzles in one with this jigsaw set: One side features an illustration of a marching band, while the other is a grid of the instruments used in that band, so they can show off their musical knowledge. It comes with 100 pieces, which makes it a good challenge for 6-year-olds. Ages 6+

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LEGO 100 Years of Disney Animation Icons

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (22)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (23)

Disney fans and LEGO collectors will both thrill to this Seal-holding set, which lets them make Disney-inspired LEGO art that they can hang on their walls. Builders can actually make 72 different characters from the included pieces, and they can make a nine-face collage for the wall and three individual plates for others. Then, they can swap out and re-build whenever they like! Ages 6+

Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award Winner

Tech Deck Sk8 Crew 2-in-1 Transforming Ultra Sk8 Bus

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (24)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (25)

If the Olympics got them all fired up about skateboarding, keep up their interest with this play set. This bus opens up to reveal three different ramps that kids can send the figure through, using the skateboard as a fingerboard. Kid testers like the colors, the build of the ramps and the fact that they could store the pieces inside to bring to relatives' houses. Ages 5+

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Good Housekeeping Kids Cook!

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The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (27)

The experts from the Good Housekeeping Institute test kitchens have developed more than 100 simple recipes that kids can try at home. They'll be whipping up everything from smoothies to lasagna based on the easy-to-follow instructions. Ages 6+

Unique Building and DIY Kit

Creatto

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (28)

The pieces of this DIY set are actually plastic tiles that interlock, kind of like a 3D puzzles, and building them can help improve fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination. The kit also includes LED string lights to make each creation glow in the dark. Each single kit (sold separately) can make three different projects, and when they're done, they'll love displaying it in their room. Ages 6+

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Great Activity Book for 6-Year-Olds

Iggy Peck's Big Project Book for Amazing Architects

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (29)

For kids who like art and engineering, this is an activity book with a city-planning twist. Modeled after the character in Iggy Peck, Architect, the activities encourage kids to think big (imagine a new cityscape, or what dwellings would look like on Mars) and small (design building details, like a gargoyle). Ages 4+

Genius Starter Kit

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (30)

Pair this kit with a tablet to bring game pieces and play to life. No Wi-Fi is necessary to start playing the included games, you just need the app, the IRL tiles and pieces and a child who's ready to learn. They can play five games and improve their skills in numbers, Tangram puzzles and words at their own pace, since the games are designed with beginner and expert levels in mind. This kit is for the iPad, but Osmo also makes kits compatible with Fire tablets. Ages 6+

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Pixicade Unlimited Mobile Game Maker

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (31)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (32)

Kids step into the role of video game designer with a set that melds the real and virtual worlds together. First, kids draw out their levels — including characters, obstacles, hazards, goals and movable objects — on paper with markers. Then they can scan their drawing into an app that'll turn it into a playable level, which they can then tweak and add power-ups. Good Housekeeping Institute testers were amazed to see their creations come to life! It's for ages 6+, but kids younger than 10 probably need adult help. Ages 6+

Animal Thief Money Bank

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (33)

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (34)

Uh-oh, there's a cat burglar on the loose! If kids put money on top of this innocent-looking box, a furry thief will poke its head out, pause for a second and then quickly snatch the money away. Users say it has a lot of personality for a bank, and it just might encourage kids to save up their coins. Ages 3+

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (35)

Marisa LaScala

Senior Parenting & Relationships Editor

Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; she previously wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found dominating the audio round at her local bar trivia night or tweeting about movies.

The Best Toys and Gifts for 6-Year-Olds (2025)
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