Classic toys for school-age kids

Toys for ages 6 to 10 and up

Toys that reward practice

From around six, many children enjoy getting good at something. Classic skill toys suit this well. A spinning top, a cup-and-ball, a yo-yo or a set of marbles is easy to start and hard to master. Children can track their own progress: a spin that lasts longer, a catch on the first try, a new trick.

Show one simple trick, then step back. Let the child practice and invent their own challenges. Short goals help. "Can you catch it three times in a row?" works better than "keep practicing."

Spinning tops

Tops come in a few classic forms. A finger top is spun with a twist of the fingers. A string top is wound with a cord and thrown. A pump or plunger top is pushed down to spin. Finger tops suit younger children, while string tops take patience and practice, and usually come with their own instructions. Try spinning on different surfaces, timing spins, or seeing whose top lasts longest.

Marbles

Marbles have been played with for centuries. A basic game draws a circle on the ground, puts some marbles inside, and lets players take turns flicking a shooter marble to knock them out. Marbles are a choking hazard for young children, so keep them away from babies, toddlers and preschoolers, and follow the age label on the set.

Jump rope and kites

Jump rope starts with simple skips and grows into tricks, rhymes and group games with a long rope. A kite needs open space away from power lines and roads, a steady breeze and some patience. Children usually need an adult to help with the first launch. The outdoor classics page has more on both.

Board games and strategy

Checkers, dominoes and other simple strategy games come into their own in these years. Children start to think a move ahead and spot patterns. Play a few games where you explain your thinking out loud. Later, let them teach the game to someone else. Teaching a game is one of the best ways to understand it.

Building and puzzles keep growing

Blocks don't disappear. Older children use them for bigger plans: towns, marble runs built from blocks and tubes, or copies of real buildings. Jigsaw puzzles grow to a few hundred pieces, and a puzzle left out on a table becomes a family project. See block play ideas.

Treat this page as a starting point. Toy rules and recall lists are kept up to date by official agencies: in the US that is the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and most other countries have a product safety regulator of their own. A pediatrician is the right person to ask about a particular child.