Christmas Gift Ideas for Grade School Boys

Yesterday, my husband and I bit the bullet and made our first “big” Christmas shopping trip of the year. While I like to order a lot of gifts online, I still like to get out and shop too. So, my husband and I usually take two or three day long Christmas shopping trips to get it all done (aka “big”).

We have been putting it off for a few weeks now, but with the holidays not too far away, we decided to go ahead and get one trip done. It was a successful trip as we got several people crossed off our list. While we did spend the entire day shopping, we didn’t buy one toy for any of the kids on our list. You would think that these would be the first gifts purchased, but with all the toys to choose from, it can actually be a daunting task to pick out the best toys for the kids on your holiday gift list.

This is especially true if you have any grade school boys to shop for. As the mother of a 7 year old, I thought I’d put a few ideas together for you. I have to admit, the ideas aren’t totally my own as I’ve been listening to the things my son has been talking about over the last few months. So here you go:

1. Card/Board Games – My son loves to play games with us, his grandparents and friends and I’m not talking about video games either. While buying a board/card game for a grade school boy may seem a little boring, it’s actually a great idea because this is something that requires interaction with others, learning how to win and lose gracefully and spending quality time with the other players. A few of the games my son enjoys are: Trouble, Checkers, UNO, Connect Four and Jenga. Older grade school boys would probably enjoy games like Scrabble, Chess, Aggravation, Monopoly, etc.
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – These big green fighting “machines” with attitude are back in the spotlight after 20 years! I can remember my brother having a Ninja Turtle birthday party when he was my son’s age and here we are doing the same thing for my son…I feel like I’ve went back in time. Anyways, TMNT are popular with pretty much all grade school boys and there’s hundreds of gifts to choose from ranging from action figures to movies to games to coloring books!
3. Building Sets – Over the last couple of months my son has shown an increased interest in Legos and other types of building sets as have the friends his age. I think building things is something that is ingrained in most boys’ brains. Every boy I’ve ever known has shown great pleasure in building (and showing off) various structures. In fact, my husband still loves to build things…only now we’re buying lumber and metal for his projects instead of Tinker Toys and Legos. In addition to Tinker Toys and Legos, some of the building sets available that your grade school boy may like include: Magformers, K’Nex, Erector Set, Model Car/Truck, ConnecTiles, etc.

Above are just some of the things my son has started talking about recently for Christmas. Do you have any additional Christmas ideas for grade school boys?