22 Best Toys for Cyber ​​Monday (2024): Lego, Bikes, Board Games

For Cyber ​​Monday this year, I decided to try something different. Instead of wading through the sea of ​​questionable toys, gadgets, and gizmos for sale alone, I called Mallory Kennedy, a pediatric therapist and owner of Portland, Oregon-based The Sensory Nest. Together, we’ve looked at a list of the most popular Cyber ​​Monday toys from major retailers.

I wanted to find toys that weren’t, in short, pointless—that helped your kids grow or that wouldn’t be flashy trash in a few days. We tested these by playing with our children. If our kids didn’t like them, I wouldn’t recommend them to yours. It’s in between to add years of continuous testing by the WIRED Gear team. Our recommendations are also cross-referenced with our shopping guides and gift guides and use a range of price tracking tools to identify the best deals. Great holiday shopping! Be sure to check out our Cyber ​​Monday deals tracker for more.

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This is probably one of the best toys I’ve ever tested (and one that needs to make it into the next review of our Best STEM Toys for Kids). The Bluetooth-connected portable keyboard has pieces that feel incredibly matte and heavy to play with. It connects to the GoChess app on your phone, which is integrated with Lichess and Chess.com. You can play against other people or get AI-powered suggestions in person, and the pieces are bright. My 7 and 9 year old have been playing with each other for weeks, as the AI ​​suggestions are more annoying than Mom’s.

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Photo: Tonies

Toniebox is the best baby speaker for small children. Long lasting, squishy, ​​Wi-Fi connected. When your child places different “Tonie” figures on top of the cube, they play songs and stories associated with the Tonies. Your children will also play with toys as toys, and you can have grandparents or other family members record up to 90 minutes of reading to children or other audio messages.

Image: Amazon

The Yoto is a (slightly) better baby speaker for older children, and has a few differences from the Toniebox. There’s a pixelated clock display and the content is very mixed—for example, you can find sleep sounds, kid-friendly radio, and a daily podcast in addition to news and songs. This version is the smaller, more portable version of the larger one we tested.

Image: Amazon

Toy cameras are different from high-end cameras because the lenses are plastic, not glass. The photo quality is noticeably worse on this than on the Instax cameras I’ve tried. However, if your child is 5 years old, he will be happy. The battery lasted an entire afternoon, the prints are on BPA-free paper, and there are even a few games.

This is a small but significant discount on the marker set my 9 year old is currently obsessed with. It’s a water-based ink, so it’ll cause very little damage to any surface your child draws on (I hate that I know this) and it’s dual-pointed, with both a fine line tip for intricate line work and a wide tip. to fill things. The pigment flows smoothly and evenly. This will be great if hand drawn holiday cards are in your game.

Clay is also part of our Best STEM Toys guide, but my kids like the air dry version better than polymer because it’s so soft and light, and you don’t have to bake it. It’s not as strong or heavy as the polymer version, but it also holds up to making small dots on your mushrooms or thick television sets or whatever you’ve got.

Image: Amazon

Amazon and Walmart are both full of these little kits that promise to entertain kids and teach them skills at the same time. For those I invited, this was a huge hit, and it provides hand soap to your reluctant guests for years to come! Melt the soap blocks in a microwave safe container and mix them with any perfume, glitter, or dyes you want. Even if it makes a mess in the sink, it’s easy to clean, because it’s soap!

Photo: logguitars.com

Playing music has also been shown to stimulate emotional development (and it’s just plain fun). Loog Guitars is currently holding a 40 percent off Cyber ​​Monday sale. My kids are currently testing out the Beatles + Loog electric guitar set and the company even sent a mini amp! This is a bit of a cheat because my kids already play piano and violin, but they find Loog’s music instruction fun and easy to follow. (And it’s an excuse to get on the iPad, grrr.)

Guardian Bikes is currently holding a Cyber ​​Monday auction. If your child is learning to ride a bike, I strongly urge you to buy one that is lighter than the one from Target or Walmart. A bike from Guardian or Woom is less expensive and weighs 10 pounds less. The Guardian also features the patented SureStop brake system which means the rear wheel will always brake before the front wheel, so your child will never spin. It works, and I know this because I gave it to a 20-year-old ding-dong to test in an empty parking garage, and he couldn’t even flip it.

Image: Amazon

This rock hound is perfect for any aspiring rock hound, and features heavily in our STEM toy buying guide. The kit includes four levels of grit, and a bag of gems to get them started falling over Christmas break. According to Amazon reviews, some adults who have carried rocks in their pockets for decades use and love this tumbler.

You may have noticed sensory toys from your children’s school and goody bags; as the name suggests, they help babies stimulate one or more of their senses, which helps them engage in motor skills and just calm down in general. Both Mallory’s and my kids love these toys, they also teach color recognition and counting. By the way, my kids are 7 and 9 and they hit it right away with their big ham hands. (They have been in Mallory’s office for almost a year).

Photo: Sphero

Okay, I know I said I hate all of a sudden, blinking one-trick ponies, but I prefer Sphero because the company’s toys are so fun. My partner Simon Hill uses this coding ball as a classroom resource to teach basic coding skills to ages 9 and up. It’s adorable and can move and navigate through mazes using infrared communication.

Building Toy Deals

Photo: Clixo

Any construction toy is great for encouraging creativity and hand-eye coordination. Reviewer Simon Hill tested the Clixo sets with his family and found the pieces sturdy, flexible, washable, and colorful. You don’t need a flat surface to build so you can play with them anywhere. They also come in themed sets with glow-in-the-dark pieces.

Image: Amazon

Magna-Tiles may be expensive (not cheap now) but the return on investment is staggering. We bought our daughter’s first set when she was 2 or 3 and enjoyed making 2D ice cream cones or hats. He is now 9 years old and still takes out the bin regularly. There are also a number of different themed sets (also for sale) if you need special pieces for racing courses or forests.

Image: Amazon

We’re die-hard Lego fans here and Lego recently announced a multi-year partnership with F1. Can’t wait until January to get your hands on the new Lego City F1 sets? Whet your appetite with the Lego Speed ​​Champions sets that are already available. Give me a minifig of Oscar Piastri! Give the people what they want!

As I wrote in our Lego Gifts guide, my 7-year-old is currently obsessed with Star Wars. Sales events are always a good time to stock up on expensive sets, as $160 for the full retail price is a little out of my second grader budget. This one has spring loaded shooters and seven mini figures, and I expect it will make his year and ruin my life.

Lego is having a Cyber ​​Monday sale. While this doesn’t exactly help me find my son’s well-thought-out Avengers tower, many of the offerings are very cute and seasonal. How beautiful is this crown? And how much better to build one, rather than buy it at the store?

Wooden blocks are always a good idea for young children, as they encourage imaginative play and motor skills. This is a huge set with 75 pieces that will keep little one entertained for a very long time. Make sure you choose ones that are ASTM certified and made from 100 percent wood, as there is a good chance that these will eventually be cut down by a person or animal.

Gaming Deals

Image: Amazon

Reviewer Simon Hill notes that this is the easiest game to start with in his Best Board Games collection. It was designed by a German psychologist and you can change the maze by pressing one tile and covering another tile every time.

Inspired by the Royal Palace of Evora in Portugal, with its blue and white ceramic tiles, this board game challenges you to create mosaics by matching tiles with different patterns and colors to accumulate the highest possible score. One of the best family board games for all tastes, Azul is easy to understand but supports many creative modes and has surprising depth. The beautiful tiles and other parts are of high quality, and filling your board is deeply satisfying. The gameplay is fast, and you can finish the game in less than an hour, but you will want to play again soon. — Simon Hill

Photo: Simon Hill

Simon notes that the game is a lot more fun than it sounds, for the most part, as it focuses more on capitalism and expanding companies and doing mergers and acquisitions. It looks great and you don’t find out who wins until the end, when you cash out your shares. It was a miracle for Simon’s children.

I know this goes to our gaming deals post, but this is a holiday gift I promised my kids. I completely burned our old Switch somehow (this is less of a disaster than you might expect, since I still have the original one from 2017) and we need to replace it in order to continue having Family Nintendo Night. It’s rare to see Nintendo drop prices on its consoles at all, so you should jump on this one if you’re looking.