Holiday

Thank You Note Ideas for Kids of All Ages

Sending thank you notes is a great way to tell a gift giver that a) their gift arrived safely (particularly in today’s world of porch pirates), b) that you really like it!, and c) you’re so very grateful that they thought of you. Ideally, you’d send a note of thanks within a week of receiving a gift, so if you’re looking for projects to fill the snowy days of winter break, how about helping your kids create some cute and crafty thank yous for their holiday gifts? Read on for some easy, age-appropriate ideas for sweet thank you notes that will touch your friends and family:

• Infants – What could be cuter than a hand-printed thank you note? Simply grab a non-toxic ink pad in the color of your choice, press baby’s palm to the pad, then to a sheet of blank paper, like the sample below from our friends at tots2tweens.com. Use the surrounding space to write your note of thanks and mail it off!

• 2-Year-Olds – Of course you’ll be writing these notes, too, but your child can add a colorful scribble at the bottom (or across the note as the case may be). Consider including a printed photo of your kiddo with the gift as an extra special touch.
• 3-Year-Olds – Many three-year-olds are beginning to draw pictures, including self-portraits like the one below from lets-explore.net. Give your sweetie a slew of colorful crayons and let them go to town. Then choose a favorite to tuck into each note that you write on their behalf.

• 4-Year-Olds – At four your child may be able to articulate what they like about a particular gift. Adding a few cute quotes to your note is sure to make the recipient smile, as will your child’s attempt at writing their name at the bottom. Or if your child is able to write, even the simplest note will certainly be appreciated and admired!

• 5-Year-Olds – Give your Kindergartner a few verbal examples of how a note might read, e.g: Dear Grandma, I love the stuffed bear you sent me for Christmas. I sleep with it every night. Thank you for the gift, Love, Joey. Then have them dictate their own version to you so you can write it down verbatim. Again, have them write their name at the bottom.
• 6-Year-Olds – If your kiddo is able, have them attempt to write their own, short thank you note and decorate it with stickers or drawings. Colored pencils or markers make this exercise more fun. ????

• 7-Year-Olds – Depending on the clarity of your child’s writing, they may be able to address the envelope in addition to writing the note. Draw lines for each part of the address and walk them through what goes where. If that’s too tricky, let them affix the stamp and return address label.
• 8-Year-Olds – At eight your child may be ready to take on thank yous all on their own. Create a list of gift givers and what they gifted to your child, then parse the notes out over a few days to keep this gesture of gratitude from becoming a burden. Providing hot cocoa and music helps, too. Find more tips for big kid thank yous at thank-you-note-samples.com.

However you choose to offer your thanks, the important part is teaching your child to show their gratitude and appreciation. ❤️

EI's Stellar STEM & Space-Themed Toys for Your Good List

Designed to introduce key concepts of science, technology, engineering, and math in a fun, low-stress way, STEM toys are super engaging, packed full of brain-building activities, and good for hours of educational fun. And it’s never too early to get started! Educational Insights has you covered, with tons of best-selling, award-winning, STEM and space-themed toys for every age group. Surprise the smarties on your list with gifts they’ll play with again and again, like:

STEM Picks for Toddlers:

Bright Basics™ Slide & Splash Seals™ Launch the littlest loves on your list into STEM learning with silly, circus-style fun that introduces the basics of early engineering, cause and effect, and experimentation. Snap the pieces together however you’d like and send the seals-on-wheels soaring. Adjust the pieces for different trajectories. Ages 2-4.Bright Basics™ Slide & Splash Spouts Turn the bathtub into a learning lab with this 7-piece set including straight pipes, elbow pipes, spinning faucets, and more! Bitty builders set up their suction cup ball runs, drop the ball, and see what happens – building STEM and fine motor skills as they play. Ages 2-5.

STEM Picks for Preschoolers:

Design & Drill® Activity Center Power up your kiddo’s creativity – and their STEM skills! – with this construction play set perfect for busy builders and artists alike! Kids use a kid-safe power drill to attach colorful bolts to a sturdy activity board, following included patterns or creating their own mini-masterpieces. Ages 3-6.GeoSafari® Jr. My First Telescope Give little star gazers their first glimpse of the universe with this focus-free (frustration-free!) telescope. Kids can see the moon 10x magnified while gaining hands-on experience and confidence with a real scientific tool. Ages 4-6.

STEM Picks For Kindergartners:

Design & Drill® Space Circuits Light up the holidays with this space-themed STEM set! Use a kid-safe drill, sturdy bolts, and specially-wired pieces to construct and complete 20 circuit-building challenges including lights, spinning motors, and more. Ages 5-8.[video width="1080" height="1080" mp4="https://www.educationalinsights.com/media/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Comp-1_3.mp4"][/video]Playfoam® Pals Space Squad Galaxy Pack Stuff their stockings with space-age fun and encourage a love of exploration and discovery with these adorable, collectible out-of-this-world creatures. Squish through the Playfoam to find your Pal, sculpt a stellar space scene, and blast into pretend play! Playfoam never dries out so the cosmic creativity never ends. Ages 5-10.

STEM Picks for Big Kids:

Artie 3000™ The Coding Robot Introduce the basics of coding with this programmable robot! Kids use a simple drag-and-drop program to program any shape – then Artie draws it on any sheet of paper! And kids can find tutorials, free downloads and code, and all things Artie on his dedicated website. Ages 7-12.https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=WUPab70Dy0M&feature=emb_logoGeoSafari® Day ‘N’ Night Ant Factory Encourage a lifelong love of life science with this self-contained critter habitat! Kids can watch ants work 24/7 with nutrient-rich farm gel that doubles as food and color-changing LEDs that light up the night! Watch them tunnel, work, eat, and more through three magnification spots. Ages 7-12.GeoSafari® Motorized Solar System Turn any room into a planetarium with this set of eight rotating planets and brightly lit sun, then turn off the lights and project a star show on the walls and ceiling for the ultimate at-home space experience! Ages 8-12.For even more STEM and space-themed gift ideas, visit our holiday toy list on Amazon. And be sure to check out our Pinterest board for some fun STEM learning activity ideas!

Whether your little one’s been naughty or nice, waking up to a stocking brimming with toys and treats is the stuff holiday dreams are made of. This year, fill your little ones’ stockings with surprises that are sure to spark creativity and inspire imagination, including a few best-selling, stocking-sized picks from EI! Some of our best ideas are below:

1. Crayons – Who doesn’t love a brand-new pack of perfectly-pointy crayons? Pair them with a coloring book featuring your kiddo’s favorite characters for an old-fashioned afternoon of coloring.

2. Playfoam® Jumbo Pods – Squishy, squashy, non-toxic Playfoam never dries out so the sculpting fun never ends. Choose your kiddo’s favorite color – there’s even sparkle and glow-in-the-dark!

3. Candy – Candy canes are a classic – so are harder-to-find treats like rock candy, sugared fruit slices, gold chocolate coins, gum drops, sour balls, and, our favorite, Butter Rum Life Savers.

4. Kanoodle® - Keep your kids busy (and build their brains) while you’re basting that turkey (or tofurky!) with 3-D solitaire puzzle games from Kanoodle! With 200+ puzzles challenges to complete, your kids will be building for hours. And, with Kanoodle Jr., even pint-sized problem solvers can get in on the puzzle game!

5. Oranges – Carry on a Christmas tradition by slipping an orange in your little ones’ stockings! Legend has it that ole’ St. Nick tossed sacks of gold down the chimney of a man who couldn’t afford dowries for his daughters. Gold being hard to come by, tradition swapped the treasure for an orange.[caption id="attachment_5204" align="alignnone" width="443"] Photo Credit: www.whatsupfagans.com[/caption]

6. Playfoam® Pals – Two stocking-stuffer surprises in one! Sift through the Playfoam to uncover a cute, collectible friend, then use the Playfoam to build them a home! Pick Space Squad for your sweet star gazer or Snowy Friends for your critter-loving cutie.

7. Books – Sliding the next installation of your kiddo’s favorite series into their stocking is a smart tradition you can carry on for years. If your kiddo prefers to pick their own, you might consider a Barnes & Noble gift card![caption id="attachment_5205" align="alignnone" width="688"] Photo Credit: www.ballarddesigns.com[/caption]

8. The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel® Card Game – Your preschooler will love stacking, slapping, and winning colorful cards with this nutty, fast-action game that’s fun for the whole family!

9. Stickers – Great for making visual stories or sticking to their water bottles, stickers are making a big-time comeback![caption id="attachment_5207" align="alignnone" width="794"] Photo Credit: www.etsy.com/shop/FreePeriodPress[/caption]

10. Playfoam Pluffle™ – Say so long to messy slime and hello to mesmerizing, mixable, can’t resistable, no-mess, fidgety fun, with Playfoam Pluffle – the perfect stocking stuffer!

An Easy Way to Find the Perfect Gift for Every Child on Your List

Attention parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and friends: This is the year that YOUR gift shines above all the rest! Whether you’re looking to create experiences filled with sheer joy or inspire “eureka” moments, EI’s toys and games are packed full of fun, designed to delight, and are certain to satisfy kids’ natural curiosity. We’ve got something that’s just right for each of the special sweeties on your shopping list!  SHOP NOW to SAVE 30% - Code:Cyber30. Expires 12/6 at 11:59 p.m.

Ages 2+

EI’s Bright Basics™  and My First Games toys give little ones the tools they need to explore their world and develop essential early learning skills, like:

1. Little animal lovers will have some big time family fun – and build vocabulary, language, and matching skills – with My First Game: Petting Zoo, the hands-on matching game made specifically for toddlers! $24.99
2. Bitty builders stack blocks to build Humpty’s wall, then knock it down, load it onto the Bright Basics™ Dumpty Truck, and begin again, somewhere else! Set demonstrates cause and effect, develops fine motor skills, and encourages imaginative play. $19.99
3. Take a trip down memory lane with the Bright Basics™ Shape-Sorting Popper, a sweet twist on a classic toddler toy! Sort the forest friends into their beds by matching the shapes on their bottoms to the shapes on the beds, the press the button to make them POP! $21.99
4. Little lovers can nurture their nature with a Baby Doux Doll! These European-designed, cloth-body dolls feature realistic baby details, just-like-me skin tones and eye colors, and a soft vanilla scent. $59.99

Ages 3+

1. Preschoolers are free to express their creativity – with no mess to clean up afterwards! Non-toxic Playfoam® Combo 8-Pack never dries out – so the squishy, squashy fun never ends – and it doesn’t stick , so kids can get creative on the go. $8.99
2.  Glow In The Dark Playfoam 8-Pack for the wild child on your list! $8.99
3. Construction meets creativity with the Design & Drill Activity Center! Kids use a real, working power drill and colorful bolts to recreate the included patterns or design their very own! $39.99
4. The perfect first board game! Little ones get sneaky with The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game, using the Squirrel Squeezers to find and place colored acorns in their logs. This award-winning, no-reading-required, quick-play, color matching game is easyto set up and clean up and fun for the whole family, too. $21.99

AGE 3-4+

1. Look, listen, and learn as wildlife warrior, Bindi Irwin, shares kid-friendly facts about nature with GeoSafari® Jr. Talking Microscope! Take a closer look with the only talking microscope for preschoolers packed with photo-quality images and audio about the amazing, up-close world of animals, plants, everyday items and more. $49.99
2. Little travel bugs will love learning about the world with the 12” GeoSafari® Jr. Talking Globe. Explore, Find It, and Measure It using the included interactive smart pen packed with more than 1,000 audio facts. $129.99
3. Kid-friendly GeoSafari® Jr. Kidnoculars® are perfect for kids who love to explore outdoors! Encourage nature studies and bird watching with focus-free, 2x magnification. $14.99
4. Curious kiddos can travel to the moon and back with the GeoSafari® Jr. My First Telescope, a focus-free telescope built specifically for little hands and growing minds. Features 10x magnification providing fantastic views of the moon, while keeping the field of vision wide, which is essential for young children’s understanding of magnified views. $34.99

Ages 5-7

1. Support STEM learning with Design & Drill® Space Circuits – a circuit building set with 20 space-themed challenges. Use a kid-safe drill to screw bolts, connectors, and specialty pieces, creating real circuits that activate lights, spin motors, and more. $49.99
2. Give double the fun with Playfoam® Pals™ Snowy Friends! Sets of 2, 6, or 12 for your needs. All sets included snow globes hides a pod of squishy, squashy, sculptable Playfoam and a totally adorable collectible animal from the Arctic. They’ll want to collect them all! $7.99 - $47.99.
3. One of four alien Pals is hiding inside each Playfoam pod in the Playfoam® Pals™ Space Squad Galaxy Pack! Dig through the special, starry Playfoam to find the friends, then use it to sculpt a cosmically-cool space scene with the included accessories and Moon Rover! $19.99
4. Transform their room into a personal planetarium with the GeoSafari® Glow-in-the-Dark Solar System. Assemble the sun, 8 planets, and dwarf planet Pluto, then use the included hangers and line to display from their bedroom ceiling! Exposure to daily sunlight makes the sun glow in the dark. $21.99
5. Computing meets creativity with Artie 3000™ The Coding Robot! Kids write the code and this Wi-Fi enabled drawing robot draws whatever they’ve coded! Comes pre-programmed with shapes and games, too. $69.99
6. Is a kiddo on your list fascinated with creepy crawlies? The GeoSafari® Day 'N' Night Ant Factory lets kids watch ants work – 24/7 – with nutrient rich farm gel that doubles as food and color-changing LEDs that light up the night. $29.99

Age 8+

1. Set their sights on outer space with the Nancy B’s Science Club® MoonScope™ & Sky Gazer's Activity Journal. With 18-90x magnification and a built-in, pre-aligned finder scope with glow-in-the-dark ring, budding astronomers get a clear view of the nighttime sky. An included, 22-page Sky Gazers Journal includes stories about the moon and tons of fun activities like writing a moon myth, drawing a man on the moon, and more. $54.99
2. Knot the noodle of your favorite, pint-sized puzzler with Kanoodle®, the brain twisting solitaire game with 200+ 2-D and 3-D puzzles! $12.99
3. You’ll always have something to play together with the Nowhere to Go® Game. Try to trap your opponent in this step-by-step strategy game for two but be warned – you’ll want to play again and again. $19.99
4. Give the gift of family fun with the Freeze Up!® Game. This award-winning pass-around wordplay game features over 170 categories, 2 modes of play, and automatic scoring for hours of unplugged fun. The game asks players to name something that starts with a particular letter – answer quickly or choose another category before you get freezed out! $24.99
5. Make it a holiday they’ll never forget with the GeoSafari® Telescope & Microscope Set. Two real, powerful, scientific tools support discovery and observation, introducing astronomy and microbility in an independent, parent-free way! $99.99

for the Whole Family

1. Go head-to-head in a portable puzzle challenge for two! Kanoodle® Head-to-Head enhances problem solving skills, develops spatial reasoning, encourages critical thinking, and more, with 80 puzzle challenges and a button function that pops your opponents’ pieces out of place! Ages 7-99. $21.99
2. Squish and squash your way into sculpting super-stardom with Sculptapalooza™! This fast-paced, hands-on game paves the way for family fun as teams race against the clock to sculpt their way through hilarious challenges. Ages 10-99. $21.99
3. Quick! What word means “partially dried grape”? Be the first to blurt out “raisin” and you’re on your way to winning Blurt!® Word Game, the riotous game of rapid word recall that’s perfect for family game night. Ages 7-99. $21.99
4. Go head to head with your brainiest kiddo in the ultimate memory test! Remember and follow the pattern of lights and press each button in sequence to win BrainBolt™ Game Ages 7-99. $21.99
5. Mesmerizing for all, Playfoam Pluffle™, never dries out, and offers a totally different feeling from the original Playfoam®. Say so long to Slime and choose from 8 bold colors. They're the perfect stocking stuffer! $15.99 (2-Pack)

Check out our Amazon Holiday Toy List for more fun ideas and great discounts on many of the items listed here! Happy holidays to all!

Thanksgiving is meant to be spent together, with loved ones, but it’s not always easy to include the littlest members of your crew in the complex to-dos of turkey day. Luckily, we’ve scoured the internet for some delicious recipes, easy decorations, and helpful chores your kids can do on their own or you can do as a family to get ready for the Thanksgiving feast! Visit our Pinterest Page, Kid-Friendly Thanksgiving Dishes for dozens of fun ideas and find a few of our favorites here:DecorationsWe LOVE this adorable turkey napkin holder from our friends at Highlights! Start saving your TP tubes now, then gather construction paper, tissue paper, scissors, and glue. Then, create this simple roll-scrunch-and-glue craft as a family a few days before turkey day. Or set the project up at the kids’ table and let the older kids supervise as the younger ones get creative! For other, family-friendly, Thanksgiving craft ideas, visit our Pinterest Page![caption id="attachment_5158" align="alignnone" width="832"] Photo Credit: Highlights.com[/caption]Our Thanksgiving Pinterest page is packed with delicious dishes your kids can help you make but getting together to make your own butter feels especially festive! (And, given that the rolls ARE the main course for many kids, hand-made butter is even more meaningful.) Making butter is as easy as filling a mason jar with heavy whipping cream, capping it, and shaking until a ball of buttermilk separates from the cream. For complete instructions, visit our friends at Buggy and Buddy![caption id="attachment_5159" align="alignnone" width="483"] Photo Credit: BuggyandBuddy.com[/caption]DessertsWhat kid doesn’t love baking? Involve yours in the Thanksgiving day fun by making Cocoa Krispies Treat Turkeys, recipe courtesy of HungryHappenings.com! Your kids will love melting, stirring, and shaping simple Rice Krispies rectangles and using orange slice candies, jellybeans, and candy corn to turn them into turkeys. If you prefer Reese's turkeys or Spiced Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, visit our Pinterest page![caption id="attachment_5160" align="alignnone" width="680"] Photo Credit: HungryHappenings.com[/caption]Setting the TableThe Emily Post Institute has some super simple tip for setting the table! Per their website, kids should “picture the word FORKS - The order, left to right, is: F for Fork, O for the Plate (the shape!), K for Knives and S for Spoons. (Okay, you have to forget the R, but you get the idea!)” Visit the site for more basic table setting tricks, including an easy way to remember where the bread plate goes, then pass what you’ve learned onto your kids and put them in charge of laying each place setting. P.S. they’ve also summarized the Top 13 Table Manners every kiddo should know, in case anyone needs a quick refresher ????[caption id="attachment_5161" align="alignnone" width="253"] Photo Credit: EmilyPost.com[/caption]Having Some FunBe sure to leave some time to play on turkey day! Our friends at Sisters Suit Case Blog  have created a hysterical Thanksgiving mad lib for kids – print them out and use them as a placemat at the kids’ table. Or perhaps an at-home Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt is more your speed? And don’t forget the Playfoam Pluffle™! Pick up tubes of yellow, orange, and red to stay with the Thanksgiving theme – it’s perfect for keeping fidgety fingers busy while the rest of the family finishes their food.[caption id="attachment_5162" align="alignnone" width="425"] Photo Credit: Sisters Suit Case Blog[/caption]Check out our Thanksgiving-themed Pinterest page for more easy ways to involve your kids in the Thanksgiving fun! Your friends at Educational Insights are wishing you the very happiest of holidays.