There are tons of different types of STEM toys that are both highly educational and tons of fun for kids of all ages. If you’re looking for a new toy, or if your child is ready for some new toys, then this list will help you find the best STEM toys on the market today.
JOYIN is a company dedicated to making a wide range of educational and fun toys, including various STEM-based kits. This soap-making kit is a great example of a STEM kit that is as enjoyable for kids as it is educational.
The JOYIN Soap Making Kit offers children the chance to design and create their very own soap. There are 12 different molds included in the kit that allows kids to shape their soap creation into one of the following designs:
Cupcake
Rainbow
Unicorn
Butterfly
Shell
Flower
Emoji
Dinosaur
Heart
Star
Mermaid Tail
Triceratops
These molds provide a range of options for kids of all ages. As well as these molds, the kit also contains all the necessities to get started, including the following:
24 Soap Base Blocks
24 Gift Bags
Surprise Charms
Two Fragrances- Lemon and Lavender
Four Liquid Colors- Yellow, Red, Blue, and Green
Glitter
Baby Oil
A pipette
4 Stirring Rods
4 Beakers
The kit is sure to engage creativity as well as critical thinking when it comes to the chemical process of creating the soap itself.
Next up we have the JOYIN STEM Building Toy which is one of our favorite STEM toys available right now. This set contains six pieces that build into a fire car carrier truck.
It's made of durable plastic, and each piece is designed to work in harmony with other pieces to create a sturdy vehicle. The kit comes with six separate fire and rescue themed vehicles that can be combined to create one large robot.
This particular STEM toy is great for kids who love trucks and cars. They can use it to create their own custom robot vehicles or just play with them individually.
The kit is designed to help build on STEM skills too, such as hand-eye coordination, critical thinking, construction, and even a bit of imagination.
This building set from Joyin Toys is perfect for kids who want to learn about engineering and construction through creative building.
This set includes a kid-friendly electric power drill, a storage box, and 163 building blocks that can be assembled in a variety of ways to create all sorts of constructions, such as robots, animals, and vehicles.
Kids can use the included power drill to assemble the pieces of the set however they might choose, encouraging creativity as well as logical problem-solving and general building abilities.
This set is perfect for kids who enjoy building things, whether they are creating or learning something new or improving upon what they already know.
The Joyin Engineering Construction play set is a great way to introduce little ones to the world of STEM toys without having to worry about any potential damage that could occur by accidentally letting them get their hands on a real-life power drill!
This STEM toy from Joyin is aimed at a younger, preschool age group, but that doesn't make it any less educational.
This adorable set is all about teaching younger children counting skills, color recognition, logical sorting abilities, and motor skills all through a fun and easy-to-learn counting/sorting game with cute and colorful bears.
The set includes six sorting cups (or honey jars), three dice, one set of jumbo tweezers, one instruction book, and 72 bears that come in an assortment of six different colors. The objective of the game is to get kids to sort the bears into the right honey pots.
Kids must figure out which bear goes where depending on both the colors of the bears as well as the shapes on the bear's bellies (which will correspond to a symbol on the honey pot).
Once kids have figured out how to correctly place the bears, they'll then need to count the number of bears placed in each respective jar.
This is a great STEM toy for young kids because it teaches them basic counting skills as well as shape recognition, color recognition, and even motor skills via the use of the jumbo tweezers which are used to carefully place the bears within the honey pots.
The set is also great for parents because it helps teach kids to follow directions and stay focused while playing games. Not only that, but the game features cute bears! What's not to like?
Joyin has created a fantastic tool kit for kids to learn various STEM-based skills using pretend play. This kit contains four (pretend!) electronic tools: an electric drill, a jigsaw, a flashlight, and a reciprocating saw.
Each tool comes with its own realistic working function, allowing kids to practice these skills by pretending to use them.
For example, the drill allows kids to pretend to drill holes in wood, cardboard, plastic, metal, etc., while the flashlight lets kids pretend to light up dark areas.
The jigsaw allows kids to pretend to cut out shapes, and the reciprocating saw allows kids to pretend to chop away at objects.
All of this pretend play is made possible thanks to the fact that the tools are powered by batteries, so there's no danger of getting hurt when kids pretend to use them.
When it comes to STEM learning, this is a great tool kit for kids because it encourages them to think creatively about how they could apply these skills to other situations beyond just pretend play.
It also provides a safe environment for kids to explore these skills, since there's no risk of damaging anything if they're not actually using them.
Motor skills are one of the most significant skills kids can develop during their early years, and this tool kit gives them lots of opportunities to hone those skills.
So if you have a child who is very hands-on, loves to build and create things, or would simply love to pretend to be a real construction worker, this is a great gift idea for them!
This next STEM toy is a little different from some of the others that we have mentioned, but it certainly deserves a spot on our list. Joyin has created a bath bomb and soap-making kit for kids that combines two fun activities: science and pretend play.
The kit includes everything needed to make a batch of bath bombs and soap, including ingredients such as sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, soap wax blocks, baby oil, epsom salts, surprise charms and more.
There's also a recipe card included that explains how to mix all the ingredients together.
The bath bomb portion of the kit is designed to help kids understand chemistry by showing them how the chemicals react together to form bubbles. They'll also get to see how the water turns from clear to cloudy after mixing the ingredients together.
The bath bomb portion of this kit is perfect for kids ages 5 and older, but younger kids will still enjoy playing around with the soap-making portion of the kit.
After kids have mixed the ingredients together, they'll then need to pour the mixture into molds to form the soap. Once the soap is formed, kids can add any kind of decoration they want to give their soap a unique look.
There are many ways to teach children about chemistry, but this particular kit does a good job of combining both of those concepts into one neat package.
Not only does it provide kids with a chance to experience science through pretend play, but it also helps them learn about chemistry along the way. This makes it an ideal gift for anyone who enjoys pretending to do experiments or creating things with their hands.
As a STEM toy, this is a great option for parents looking for something that teaches multiple types of skills.
It offers kids a chance to try their hand at chemistry, as well as a chance to practice motor skills with the more practical elements of the bath bomb and soap creation (pouring mixtures into molds, etc.).
The kit even lets them use their imagination in order to come up with creative ideas for decorating their soap and bath bombs.
If your child likes trucks, then this set of toys might be right up their alley. This stem building set features a whopping 12 different vehicles, with each one having two different forms that can be changed out depending on what type of vehicle your child wants to build.
Much like the other fire truck toys on this list, there is also the option to combine all the smaller vehicles together to create one large toy, this one being a large fire truck.
In terms of what can be learned from this toy, it has various STEM-based educational benefits such as teaching kids about hand-eye coordination, logical building, and creative thinking.
This set is a great choice for kids who love trucks and cars. It provides them with a variety of options when it comes to building their own version of these vehicles, whilst also offering beneficial learning opportunities.
Of course, there are also plenty of opportunities for fun as well, which should keep kids entertained whilst also learning about vital STEM skills.
These animal blocks are made of plastic and feature cute little animals that kids can assemble together to make some pretty adorable creations. Each block has three pieces that snap together, making it easy for young builders to put the blocks together to make whatever they'd like.
There are several different designs available- including 6 flying birds, 6 sea animals, and 12 safari animals- that can be mixed and matched thanks to the blind bags that offer a random selection.
This is another set that is aimed at a younger audience in comparison to some of the other kits we have mentioned on this list. However, despite its age range, it still offers a number of STEM-related benefits, especially if you consider how much time kids spend playing with blocks.
Some of these benefits include:
Teaches logic and problem-solving skills by encouraging kids to think creatively about how they want to arrange the blocks
Helps develop fine motor skills by allowing kids to manipulate small objects using their fingers and thumbs
Provides a great opportunity to learn about shapes and colors through the different designs
Allows kids to explore creativity by mixing and matching the blocks
The blocks themselves are fairly simple to construct, so younger kids will probably enjoy putting them together without any help. They're also small enough that older kids can handle assembling them by themselves, too.
The cute animal designs that can be made using the blocks are sure to appeal to children's imaginations, and the fact that they're randomly selected means that every kid gets their own unique set of blocks.
If you're looking for an inexpensive way to introduce your kids to the joys of building with blocks whilst offering some educational STEM-based learning, then look no further than this set.
It may not be the most advanced kit on our list, but it does provide hours of entertainment at a relatively low cost.
This is a fantastic starter set for toddlers and preschoolers when it comes to learning about STEM skills.
It includes 100 plastic blocks in five bright colors and seven different shapes: 40 square bricks with 1×1 pegs, 4 square bricks with 2×2 pegs, 15 rectangular bricks with 1×4 pegs, 10 rectangular bricks with 1×3 pegs, 25 rectangular bricks with 1×2 pegs and two extra shapes too.
Blocks are an excellent way to introduce STEM skills to toddlers, as they allow them to use their hands and fingers to build things. These blocks are also designed to encourage creative play and imagination, which is important for developing a child’s cognitive abilities.
As well as that, these blocks are perfect for helping toddlers practice basic math concepts such as counting, sorting, measuring, and comparing. Plus, there are lots of fun games that can be played with them.
The JOYIN kids building blocks are a fantastic choice for toddlers and preschoolers in terms of fun, but also in terms of education via the numerous STEM skills that can be learned with them.
Show N Tell
The great thing about these STEM items is that they would make for excellent toys for kids to bring to show and tell at school.
Whether it is one or two of the creations that a child might have built with the Joyin building block kits or one of the other kits or game sets, these toys are sure to inspire creativity and logical thinking that can be easily shared with their peers via show and tell.
Final Thoughts
As you can see from all the information above, there are many options out there when it comes to choosing the best STEM toy kit for kids. A wide range of choices here, but the main thing to remember is that each one of these toys has something special to offer.
So, don't just choose the first option you come across because it looks good or seems interesting; instead, make sure that you read up on what each toy offers before making a decision.
This should give you a better idea of whether, or not, it's right for your child and how much they'll benefit from playing with it.
Hi, my name is Elena Jones, and my full-time job is a teacher. Through teaching, I have discovered that children learn in many different ways, and have seen the positive impact both STEM and Montessori toys have on children.
Through this site I hope to educate parents and adults about these toys, providing them with useful information on how they can be used, and provide some in depth reviews of different toys to consider too.
