After the often traumatic experiences of deciding upon, finding and buying presents for your own children, you’re sometimes clean out of gift ideas for nephews and nieces, especially for precocious niblings who are a little too clever for their own good. Here we’ve complied five Christmas gift ideas to spark the creativity and challenge the intelligence of precocious nephews and nieces.
Lego Mindstorms
Lego Mindstorms is the play set which combines creativity with engineering and physics. Ideal for slightly older children, the kits offer almost limitless possibilities. Recently a 13 year old boy from California developed a Braille printer using a Lego Mindstorms kit, which has gone on to be backed publicly and financially by technology giant Intel.
Lego Mindstorms creations are only limited by imagination.
Set: The Game
Developed in the early 1990s, Set is an enduringly popular card game for gifted children. Encouraging bright minds to spot and develop patterns, players must find sets of three cards following particular rules. The game is still enjoyable for adults, looking to sharpen their skills of reasoning and pattern-spotting ability. For the past 30 years, more and more variations of Set have been released adding even more challenges to the game.
Constellation Globe
The Nova Rico Linea Stellare Illuminated Globe from All Round Fun helps children explore the constellations of our universe. With accurate and truthful depictions of the stars of the night’s sky, curious and studious children can learn more about astrology. With constellation names and pattern depictions explaining how many of the constellations earned their names, children’s astrological learning can really benefit from this unique unusual globe.
This premium black natural wood base and steel build ensure this globe can be enjoyed by children who are both rambunctious and precocious.
George’s Secret Key to the Universe
Essentially ‘A Brief History of Time’ for children, ‘George’s Secret Key to the Universe’ is a children’s book written by Stephen Hawking in partnership with his daughter Lucy. The book details a number of complex theories including atoms, dark holes and other scientific subject matter in words intended for brainy children. Plus if your nephew or niece enjoys the book, there are two sequels which can serve as presents for coming birthdays and Christmases as well.
The Zoob Challenge
Developed especially for clever children, the Zoob Challenge set tasks children to develop contraptions out of the supplied pieces of kit which complete 25 different challenges. Using the 175 supplied pieces, children are tasked with complete different challenges based around STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) such as launching a ball in the air.