Unique Gift Ideas for Kids

A guide to give you unique, and high quality gift ideas for the kids in your life! No clutter, no money wasters, no junk.

I think that more and more, families are desiring a more simple life.

The glory days of bigger is better and flashing everything, do more, have more, look what I have are waning ever so slightly.

A lot of people have come to their senses a bit when it comes to stuff = stress.

Think about gifting in a different way.

For those people, buying gifts, especially for your children, can be something that takes a bit more time and consideration than one might think.

I personally, am always weighing out the benefit versus the pitfalls of toys and such. Will it be something that they can enjoy for a long period of time or will it get tossed aside permanently very shortly?

Can this be played with in different ways, or does it serve only one purpose?

The infamous Ikea play kitchen…

A good example of this quandary is the instance of my daughter’s mini Ikea play kitchen.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but to be honest, a play kitchen really isn’t necessary for most kids. I am sure there are a few kids who play with theirs a lot, but mine was not one of them.

When I bought the thing, I was SO excited about it. (More than she?)

WHen You Think They Will Love something… And They Don’t

She was around 2, and I was certain that it was a wise purchase.

After all, it was beautiful sleek Ikea design, white and wood tones, modern style and had little light up burners for Pete’s sake!

She liked it enough and played with it some, but truthfully, the majority of the “playing” was her taking out all the food from inside, trailing everything all over the house and then going to do something else.

The pretend food was played with fairly often, but I wish we had kept it to a small collection. She continued to do this until recently, at the age of 5. My son later began to carry on the tradition of the good old fashioned dump and strew. I moved it out of our kitchen and into another room and they haven’t touched the thing since. They both enjoy being in the real kitchen with me much more.

Updated – Now that my kids are 8 and 4, the kitchen actually gets played with more than it ever used to. Maybe the key is to wait until they are past the 2 year old range.

Tips for Keeping Kids Things Simple and Uncluttered

Recently, I have caught these messages from several ladies that have larger families…

The things that we think we need for our kids, aren’t always necessary or even useful.
If it is causing you stress as a parent, or contention on a regular basis, GET RID OF IT. If your kids dump out the toy food all over the house everyday, and you find yourself feeling bitter about it on a daily basis, fix it!
Adapt your home to work for you instead of against you. Small tweaks can change the course of your day.
Your kids do not remember your love for them by what things you gave them. Period.

List of Unique Gift Ideas for Kids

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Unique Book Gift Ideas for Kids

If you know me at all, you’ll know that my go-to, first choice for gifts is books! I love children’s books so much. Here are a few of my favorites and some that are on my wish list:

Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman – This is a beautiful book that all ages can enjoy. Lovely watercolor illustrations depict nature subjects such as insects, tress and plants, volcanoes and more. Also available is a set of all three of her books in this series, including Food Anatomy, and Farm Anatomy which would make a great gift for any child interested in reading and nature. (Great gift for bookish adults, too!)

The Story Orchestra by Jessica Courtney-Tickle – There are three books available in this series as well, Tchaikovsky’s Four Seasons, The Nutcracker, and Sleeping Beauty. These are beautiful, large hardback books with spots to press all through that play bits of the selected music! We have the Four Seasons one and it is so beautiful. It is really neat to be able to hear the music while reading the story that goes along with it. A great way to sneak in some music appreciation and familiarity with your kids. Plus, what kid doesn’t love to press buttons in books?

Linnea In Monet’s Garden by Christina Bjork – This is probably my favorite children’s book. It was a favorite of mine growing up. I attribute my love of Monet and great paintings in part to falling in love with this story, the characters and their special trip to Giverny to visit Monet’s garden and home. The character Linnea sees the waterlilies, walks across the famous Japanese bridge and stays in an old hotel called The Esmeralda.

Brambly Hedge Collection by Jill Barklem – These little books are darling! They are sweet, wholesome and fun to read together. And so beautiful!

The 50 States – This book is gorgeous. It is big, colorful, and packed with information.

More Unique Book Gift Ideas for Kids

Audio books and a cd player
Photo book with family pictures of the child’s experiences over the past year. Kids love to look at photos, especially of themselves! Shutterfly is a good place to get these, they have good sales and coupons from time to time if you watch.
Magazine subscriptions can make great gifts that keep giving all year! Hop over to Amazon and check out their great selection of children’s magazines. A lot of them are surprisingly inexpensive!
Cookbooks are thoughtful gifts for the child who is interested in cooking or who loves to get involved in the kitchen with parents. Kid Chef and Kid Chef Jr. look like they would be great. Imagine that plus a child safe knife set, an apron and a utensil or two! What a fun gift!

Arts and Crafts Gift Ideas

Art and craft supplies make great gifts for the creative kid who likes to make.

A big palette of colorful watercolors. This is a nice set that comes with watercolor paper and brushes!
Super Tip markers (Our favorites!)
Craft kits like this or this!
Kinetic sand
Weaving loom

Music Gift Ideas for Kids

I don’t know about your kids, but mine love to listen to music. Here’s a few of our favorites that kids love but that won’t make the adults want to scream and jump out the window. Ahem.

A CD player is a great gift, my daughter loves to have one in her room and is able to change the CDs and listen to whatever she’d like. It’s a great thing to have, especially during her quiet time.

Unique Toy Gift Ideas

Magnet Tiles – The 5 year old and the 1 year old play with these. They are totally open ended, meaning they can be played with many different ways and worked into many imaginative settings. I imagine these will grow with them and still get played with for quite a few years.
Legos -These always seem to be a win with kids. Nothing like a big box of Legos. Add this book to go with it that shows you how to build all sorts of cool things with your blocks! No need to keep buying different Lego sets, get their mind working on how to create things with what they already have! (There’s also this one and this one!)
Dress up clothes – We have a bin in my daughter’s closet full of dress up clothes. Some are friends hand me downs, some are from her Nana buying her things at the thrift shop. Hats, purses, silly shoes… You can also get doctor outfits, overalls and straw hat to be a farmer, really get creative with it.
Kid sized tools – Kids love to pitch in and do what you’re doing. That can be even easier to make happen when they have some of their own tools. Garden tools, tool kit, and wheelbarrow.
Cash Register -This is a frequently used toy at our house. Playing store clerk, post office, librarian… Kids love to pretend to be the store clerk! This is a great way to practice math skills while playing. This is the one that we have, and I also had it in my preschool classroom for years and it is super sturdy.

Board Games Ideas for Kids

Board games are a gift that encourages togetherness. And that’s a gift for the child and parent.

Match a Pair of Birds Memory Game
The 50 States Matching Game (Goes with above mentioned book!)
Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure Game
Monopoly Jr or Original
Busytown Eye Found It Game
Uno
Guess Who
Yahtzee
The Game of Life
Scrabble Jr.
Battleship

I could go on, as you can tell, we love board games. Some of these we own, others I would like to have. Don’t underestimate the power of quality time spent playing games with your kids!

Other Unique Gift Ideas for Kids

Camera – We got our daughter this one when she was about 3 and she still enjoys it 2 years later. It’s a great way to introduce cameras. The picture quality is bad, so when they get a little older, I would recommend getting an inexpensive “real” camera, maybe like this one.
Food – If your kid is a foodie, something special that they love is a fun gift! Chocolate, fun snacks, dried fruit, their favorite cereal that they don’t get to have very often, honey sticks…
Water bottle – I love a good quality water bottle. This one is my absolute favorite and well worth the money.

Experience Gift Ideas for Kids

Memberships – Museum, water or amusement park (if you have one near you), trampoline park, etc.
Lessons – Art, pottery, dance, horseback riding, music, etc.
Experiences – Something that you know they want to do or experience, make it a family time as a gift! A day doing their favorite thing, all together. Take them shopping and to lunch. Go on a special adventure, give a small gift that goes along with the adventure and a “coupon” to redeem.
Coupons – Stay up 1 hour past bedtime, eat your favorite desert, a one on one lunch date, trip to the bookstore to pick out one book, no chores for the day, extra TV time… things like that. Easy and simple gift, but really pretty fun for the kids.

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What are your ideas for minimal and no clutter gift ideas for kids? I’d love to hear, I’m sure there are many more great ideas! Share them in the comments below so we can all see!

Dig the Good Life!

Love,