Best of Quarantine Schooling
We have a lot of ideas for keeping at-home learning fresh and fun.
Start the love of learning early with these picks, designed to foster a sense of curiosity and wonder for the young learner in your life.
Three Little Piggies Deluxe – With 48 challenges from easy to expert, this puzzle game will help your preschooler develop spatial insight, planning, problem solving, concentration, and logic skills. Includes a picture book!
Melissa & Doug SmartyPants for Preschoolers – 120 brain-building cards with questions, puzzles, and games.
My First Microscope – Introduce the wonders of natural science and set curious kids up for success with a love of STEM-based learning.
Ready for Reading Phonics wipe-clean activity book – This fun book is a perfect way for young children to start learning about phonics.
Jumbo Magnifier – Features a kickstand for hands-free investigation!
Bunny Peek-a-Boo – This preschool puzzle game is a fun introduction to language concepts such as above/below, inside/outside, visible/hidden, etc. It features 60 challenges and stimulates language, spatial insight, problem solving, concentration, and logic skills.
Primary Science Lab Set – Big science for little hands! This 22-piece set includes 10 activity cards that will introduce your young learner to science.
Simple Tape Measure – Perfect for the kiddo who likes to measure everything!
Hape Junior Inventor Science Experiment Toolbox – This compact toolbox contains everything your kiddo needs to carry out over six exciting experiments that will teach them about science and inventing.
Coding Critters Playset – This 22-piece coding playset teaches preschoolers early STEM concepts through coding and play!
Coding Critters Pair-a-Pets – More pals for the Coding Critters family!
Explore logic, spatial relationships and mathematics with these fun and engaging choices for educational games.
Asteroid Escape – Asteroid Escape is a 1 player galactic sliding puzzle with 60 missions, from beginner to expert. Your little one will test their flying skills as they build their planning, visual perception, problem solving, spatial insight, and flexible thinking skills.
Play Smart Dice – A fun, unique way for your child to develop math fact fluency! Use them just a few minutes a day to sharpen math skills and master essential building blocks for higher academic achievement.
Squirrels go Nuts! – In this 1 player sliding puzzle game, featuring 60 challenges from beginner to expert, your little one will help the squirrels get ready for winter by hiding their acorns underground. While they’re having fun, your kiddo will also be developing their planning, logic, problem solving, spatial insight, and concentration skills.
The Genius Square – With 62,208 possible puzzles to complete, this logic puzzle will keep your child occupied for hours, all while developing their thinking at speed, spatial awareness, and visual perception skills.
Chroma Cube – This colorful brainteaser game includes 25 puzzle cards, each one more difficult than the last.
Making Change – Work on math and practical money skills!
Encourage kids to learn the basics of coding and robotics with kits like these.
Green Science Solar Robot – Make a moving robot using a solar panel and a motor.
Money Bank Robot – Give the Money Bank Robot a coin and it swallows it up with a snap of its jaws!
Bubble Robot – Construct this incredible bubble-blowing robot! Power it up and watch the bubbles flow.
Fridge Robot – Fridge Robot is a fridge magnet on the move! Build the robot and watch it defy gravity as it walks up and down your fridge.
Green Science Aqua Robot – Watch this Aqua Robot swim along when sunlight shines on its solar cells.
Botley the Coding Robot – Botley helps your child learn early STEM skills while playing and having fun. He teaches kids to code with active, screen-free play that’s perfect for promoting critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Tobbie II – Tobbie II is a programmable, build-it-yourself HEXIPED robot with a 360 degree free-rotation body. Tobbie II has 12 programs available for download, so kids can start having fun immediately! For more advanced programmers, this robot can be coded using JavaScript block editor or Python.
Tracerbot – Tracerbot is a smart robot that follows your marker line like magic! Command Tracerbot by simply drawing a course on blank paper. Tracerbot detects and navigates the trail you design. Tracerbot’s interactive play helps develop critical thinking, encourages creativity, and fosters an interest in science and technology.
Make outdoor time into a rich, tactile exploration of science and nature.
Green Science Windmill Generator – Build this amazing wind generator and learn about renewable energy. Watch the LED light glow as it is powered by free energy from the wind – no batteries required! Plus, you can help save the planet by recycling a plastic bottle to support your wind generator.
Green Science Salt Powered Truck – Build this truck and prepare its battery for action. Then add some salty water and watch the fun truck go!
The Little Book of Bees – An illustrated guide to the extraordinary lives of bees.
Birds of Eastern/Central North America 1000 piece puzzle – Designed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this puzzle includes a bird key poster so you can identify the different birds on the puzzle. Pairs with the Bird QR App (free) so your budding ornithologist can listen to the bird calls.
Critter Case – Perfect for observing insect friends.
Handheld Microscope – A compact, pocket size microscope that performs great observation outdoors!
Butterfly Bungalow – Nurture a love of nature and life science with this at-home introduction to the incredible world of insects.
Peek Inside Bug Homes – Go on a bug hunt! Peek under leaves and into flowers, hives, and nests to find all kinds of wonderful creepy crawlies.
I Love My Home – A pop-up book about animal families and their homes.
The Bee Book – What’s the buzz about honeybees? Find out why bees need our help and what you can do.
Nature Explorer 6-in-1 Multi-Tool – Discover the wonders of the outdoors with this toolset. Includes all the fun explorer tools you need in your quest to search, dig, measure, and observe the world around you.
SeaScope – Perfect for exploring life in streams, ponds, lakes, and tide pools! Features 5x magnification, a built-in ruler and thermometer, and 3 LED lights for illumination.
KidzLabs Survival Science Kit – This fantastic survival kit shows how science can help you to get out of trouble in the wild!
Fascinating Ant Farm – Take a peek into the amazing underground world of the ant.
Learn about revolutionary innovators with these approachable books for our youngest historians.
Dream Big, Little One (board book) – From Ella Fitzgerald and Oprah Winfrey to Katerine Johnson and Maya Angelou, with these extraordinary role models, your little leader will go to sleep inspired.
Little Feminist board book set (4 books) – This set of 4 board books introduces youngsters to female artists, leaders, activists, and pioneers who have made an impact on the world.
Little Dreamers: Visionary Women Around the World – In this irresistibly illustrated volume, you’ll meet trailblazers like scientist Marie Curie, musician Violeta Parra, astronomer Vera Rubin, artist Yayoi Kusama, environmental activist Wangari Maathai, and architect Zaha Hadid. Some names are well known, some are not, but all the women had a lasting effect on the fields they worked in. Whether they were breaking ground for innovative structures or breaking rules and creating new ones, the women profiled in these pages not only made a place for themselves in the world but made the world a better place to live.
Little Scientist board book set (4 books) – This set of 4 board books introduces youngsters to scientists who have forever changed the fields of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and life sciences.
Choosing a theme to explore for a few weeks is a fun way to mix things up and focus on a topic in depth. For example, take your kids on an adventure into the final frontier!
Smithsonian Museum Craft Kit: Space – Combine creativity, discovery, and learning in one exciting artistic journey! Includes everything needed to mold and paint 3 spacecraft, plus an activity book packed with fun, games, and learning.
Green Science Solar System – What better way to learn about the solar system than building your own model that actually rotates to show the path the planets take around the sun? Powered through a hybrid system of solar power supported by a backup battery, this kit takes a STEAM approach to learning, where engaging in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics guides students into learning about the real world.
Pepper Mint the Magnificent Mars Expedition – Join Pepper Mint on a Mission to Mars! Build a rocket ship playset from colorful wooden panels, then blast off on an adventure to discover the invisible forces of magnets by conducting seven exciting experiments.
Night Sky Projection Kit – Lights off! It’s time for your child to transform their bedroom into a starry night sky with this amazing star projector.
Motorized Solar System – Encourage your little astronomer to explore the solar system with this motorized model that includes the sun, 8 planets, and the Earth’s moon. Includes a star dome to project constellations onto your child’s walls and ceiling, and a full-color, 28 page guide packed with fun solar system facts.
Solar System Planetarium – The Solar System Planetarium set teaches children about the wonders of the solar system. Just assemble, paint and learn! This set includes planets, stencils, squeeze glow paint pen, rods, string, a fact filled wall chart and 10 sets of Kidz Quiz questions.
Reading, journaling, sending note cards to friends or playing games like Bananagrams counts as a way to flex language arts skills!
Folktale for Fearless Girls – Wily women and clever girls, valiant queens and brave daughters – these are the people to save the day in this collection of folktales from around the world and across the ages. Featuring stories from China, Russia, Persia, India, Armenia, the UK, Spain, France, Southern Africa, Egypt, and Germany, this book gives us a showcase of the original literary feminists. With beautiful full-color art spread through-out to accompany these empowering tales, this is an essential book for all girls!
Usborne Illustrated Originals – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
Assorted notebooks from Rifle Paper Co. – Comes in pocket size and full size.
Trading Card Kit – Perfect for the child that’s nuts for blind packs and collecting trading cards of any type. This kit includes everything you kiddo needs to create 36 custom trading cards.
STMT D.I.Y. Journaling Set – Let your teen unleash their creativity and create their very own memory journal!
Bananagrams – The ultimate word-race game! Players and their opponents aim to use all of their letters to build a word grid in a race to the finish. The first player to use all of their tiles is crowned “Top Banana”!
Comic Book Kit – Do you have a budding comic book artist in your house? Get their creative juices flowing with Tiger Tribe’s Comic Book Kit – Practice. Plan. Create – a fabulous, all-in-one set filled with everything your child needs to create their very first comic! Simple step-by-step instructions in the Comic Book guide book take kids through all the tools they need to make their characters and story come to life.
There’s never been a better time to teach your child the art of self-sufficiency. Bonus – maybe THEY’LL make YOU dinner for a change!
Klutz Maker Lab Candy Science – This kit comes with everything your little one needs to make four different flavors of jelly beans, plus five more recipes for treats they can make with items from home.
Maine Street Bee Raw Wildflower Honey – Available in 8 oz or 12 oz containers. Locally made in Cumberland, Maine!
The Forest Feast Gatherings – Simple vegetarian menus for hosting friends and family (don’t actually host friends and family right now).
Teddy in a Tin Travel Bear – The perfect first sewing project! This kit includes a pre-sewn teddy shape, stuffing, a plastic needle, thread, and bear accessories.
Rainbows & Unicorns Ultimate Unicorn Baking Set – Did someone say UNICORN PARTY?! Includes cookie cutters, a silicone cupcake tray, spatula, piping bag with 3 tips, and a recipe booklet.
Finding Home Farms Granulated Maple Sugar – 6 oz
Guide to Maple Syrup – How to tap and cook with nature’s original sweetener, with notes on the history and science of maple syrup.
Love & Lemons Every Day – More than 100 bright, plant-forward recipes for every meal.
Love & Lemons Every Day – More than 100 bright, plant-forward recipes for every meal.
These science kits have everything you need to learn about their area of expertise. Study sharks, butterflies and more!
Smithsonian Museum Craft Kit: Sharks – Combine creativity, discovery, and learning in one exciting artistic journey! Includes everything needed to mold and paint 3 sharks and teeth, plus an activity book packed with fun, games, and learning.
Eyewitness Kits: Butterfly – Learn about the fascinating world of butterflies. Cast, paint, and display the Monarch, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, and Swallowtail.
Eyewitness Kits: Humanworks – Discover the incredible working of human anatomy – cast, paint, assemble, and display an 18″ human skeleton.
Eyewitness Kits: Dinoworks – Discover the world of dinosaurs – cast, paint, assemble, and display a 19″ Tyrannosaurus skeleton, and learn about dinosaur digs.
Micropro 48-Piece Microscope set – Investigate everything from cells to crystals in dazzling detail with this die-cast microscope featuring glass eyepieces and 50x–600x power settings!
As toy store team members, parents, grandparents, and kids at heart, we know a LOT about play. If you’re shopping for someone who has everything, or a kid with a very specific interest in squids, we’ve got you covered with lots of fun ideas.
When you shop at our stores our experts are there to help you find the perfect match for your kiddo, and online, our blog is here to help you research and find those gifts that get the biggest ‘WOW!’ of all.