Black Friday Early Deals: Save Big on STEM Toys and Coding Toys

Black Friday and Cyber Monday don’t start until right around Thanksgiving. But the deals are coming fast and furious and thus, we bring you the latest and greatest savings on some of the best STEM toys and coding toys.

It’s screen-free coding for preschoolers. Kids play with the kitten pets by following along with a code-along storybook full of multiple coding adventures. The playset includes a house, slide, yarn ball, and cat toy.

Ideal for kids eight and older, this kit teaches kids about physics and engineering design by having them build functional models and conducting tests with them. We’re talking marine vehicles, submersibles, buoyancy, wind power, rotation, gears, energy conversion, center of gravity, balance, pneumatics, hydraulics, statics, and optics. The kit comes fully loaded with 258 building pieces, including gears and pulley wheels of different sizes, air-and-water tanks, and a pneumatic piston. Who says shopping for tweens is hard?

Kids eight and up download the app and then have a blast with Cozmo. He has four motors and 50 gears. He’s equipped with 30fps VGA camera and facial recognition software so he actually gets to know kids. He has a facial display to show his emotions. Kids can program Cozmo to dance, sneeze, or play with his cube toys. All kids need to do is drag and drop coding blocks on the Cozmo app to build a new combination of blocks, and Cozmo will act accordingly.

STEM Toys Meaning

What purpose do STEM toys serve? Fair question. According to American University’s school of education, they help spark kids’ interest in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM fields). STEM jobs are projected to keep growing by 8.9 percent between 2014 and 2024, per a Commerce Department study, with STEM workers earning 29 percent more than non-STEM workers.

But here’s the thing. A lot of STEM toys look cool, but aren’t particularly engaging. Nor do many of them encourage open-ended non-linear play, which any child development expert will tell you is crucial to keep kids interested in their toys. That’s why we chose toys that will actually be fun to play with. Which is pretty crucial.

Every product on Fatherly is independently selected by our editors, writers, and experts. If you click a link on our site and buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.