Best Gifts for 8 & 9 Year Olds: Top Toys, Games & Books

Eight and nine year olds are entering the "tween" years. They are out growing some of their earlier favorite toys. Diego and Dora toys or Thomas the Train items may have been hot ticket items for years but these third and fourth graders are ready for more of a challenge in games, reading and activities. This best of list has vetted by a mom and teacher. Better yet, these gifts for eight and nine year olds have been kid-approved.

Qwirkle wins for best family game.

Qwirkle comes with 108 wooden tiles wearing colorful shapes to match up. It's like cards and dominoes rolled into one and on steroids. It's a four-time toy award winner and the best selling game of all time for Mindware.

Why I like it:

Ages seven and up can be successful. It's easy to make some kind of match but with some added strategy players can really challenge themselves and rake up the points.

In our house, parents and kids a like vote for Qwirkle for family game night.

Why kids like it:

It's super easy to set up and the rules are easy to learn so everyone can start play right away.

Science Kits from Educational Explorer give kids a taste explosion.

These fun science kits from Educational Explorer include instructions and basic ingredients to create tasty rewards for learning science. There are a variety of kits from

Disgusting Science: The Science of Revolting Thing, the Ice Cream Kit, the Candy Kit and Tasty Science kit. These three time award winners are perfect for ages eight and up.

Why I like them:

Kids are learning science concepts but they just think they are having fun. Buying these as Christmas gifts, gives kids something fun and educational to do over winter break.

Why kids like them:

They are growing up and ready to experiment. They love the "I made it myself" factor and the taste factor too.

Oh boy! Oh, Yuck and Oh, Yikes are favorite tween books.

Joy Masoff is the genius of creating books that kids will love to read. Oh, Yuck features science and Oh, Yikes features history. The photos, drawings and bloggy format are very kid-attractive. Parents, you'll just have to get passed the finger in the nose on the cover. It's for a good cause- to attract young readers!

Why I like them:

Kids will read and reread these books. Oh Yuck and Oh Yikes are actually very educational down under that layer of pond scum.

Why kids like them:

There are plenty of four letter words like wart, tick and snot. It's everything gross they ever wanted to ask that you didn't want to answer.