10 Best STEM Toys for Kids (2022): Make Science, Technology, Engineering, Math Fun!

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When picking out a toy or game, I’m pretty sure you also consider something that will provide plenty of fun while helping to teach important skills kids might need in the future.

In this post, we’ll look at STEM toys, which are toys geared toward curiosity, learning, and education. And the great thing about these toys is that they’re fun! When kids are having fun they will be naturally more engaged and learn more.

But before I share the list with you, let’s learn a bit more about STEM. 

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. These toys help kids develop essential skills, including problem-solving abilities, critical thinking, and logical reasoning, that are useful throughout their lives. 

STEM toys also help make STEM subjects, which kids typically find intimidating, to be fun and approachable. In other words, STEM toys are a great medium for kids to discover the joys of learning science, mathematics, engineering, and technology early on.

Now, without further ado, here are our the Top 10 STEM toys for 2022 that you will want to add to your gift list!

1. Magna-Tiles

The ever-so-popular Magna-Tiles is a building set where 3D magnetic tiles that you click together form flat 3-dimensional shapes. It includes 32 translucent, colorful squares and triangles.

Magna-Tiles help develop tactile and spatial skills, creativity, fine motor skills, focus, and concentration. If you’re into creating and building stuff, you’re definitely going to love this!

2. Snap Circuits Teach Tech Mech 5

For aspiring engineers here, Mech-5 is the one for you. It is a one-of-a-kind Mechanical Coding Robot you can assemble. And after building the robot, you can snap the coding buttons onto the coding wheel to see it move! 

This stem robot can rotate 360 degrees, move forward and backward, and even do challenging tasks like drawing, throwing, kicking, and lifting. 

Mech-5 is an entry-level robot that will help teach you about coding basics and mechanical engineering principles.

3. Scientific Explorer Crime Catchers Science Kit

Solve exciting crime mysteries with this safe and fun educational Scientific Explorer Crime Catchers Science Kit. 

Like a crime scene investigator, you can solve two mysteries with eight activities by following clues and gathering evidence, learning about DNA, matching fingerprints, testing powders, and decoding secret messages.

The set includes baking soda, citric acid, flour, 12 suspect cards, six ph strips, three coffee strip filters, three cups, two markers, two plastic bags, decoder glasses, a graduated cylinder with a cap, a test tube with cap, a painting, rubber band, shoe print, and activity guide. 

4. National Geographic Mega Crystal Growing Lab

With this Mega crystal-growing lab kit, you can grow various vibrant crystals while learning about science, geology, and crystal formation. 

The deluxe set includes six colors of crystal-growing powder, four real crystal specimens, two flexible silicone growing chambers, a light-up crystal display base, a full-color STEM Learning Guide and instructions, and many more.

What’s great about this stem chemistry kit is that you can grow your own crystals and display them after! 

5. Pizza Garden Kit

If you’re into gardening or want to immerse yourself in botany, this Pizza Garden Kit will suit you well.

Grow your own vegetables, including tomato, peppers, and basil, to top your delicious pizza. You can place your clear mini greenhouse terrarium near your window and watch your seeds thrive into herbs and vegetables you can eat!

6. Math for Love Prime Climb

Prime Lab is a strategy-based board game you can play with your family that is fun and helps you develop deeper mathematical thinking.

It helps you learn and master prime number concepts, multiplication,  division, and factorization by combining colors. 

What a fun and exciting way to learn Math!

7. Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 03: Vehicle Kit

If you already have a Nintendo Switch, you should try the Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 03: Vehicle Kit. 

Build Toy-Con or customizable cardboard creations that you can connect to your Switch console. See your amazing creations come to life, allowing you to play related games, interact and explore a mysterious world, and more.

8. Snap Circuits Jr. Electronics Exploration Kit

Snap Circuits Jr. Electronics Exploration Kit is a fun and safe way to learn the basics of electrical engineering! 

You can build electric-powered projects and toys, which provide hands-on education on electronics and how electrical circuits work. After mastering several techniques introduced in the kit, you can experiment and create your own electronic devices and circuits.

9. Crayola Paper Flower Science Kit

Whether you’re interested in science or love nature, the Crayola Paper Butterfly Science Kit will surely be a hit. 

Get hands-on learning experience in physics and learn about the science of water “wicking” while creating color-changing flowers. You will also learn about capillary action, where the ascension of liquids through a tube or cylinder occurs.

Definitely a hands-on educational toy that is beautiful to behold! 

10. National Geographic Solar Moon Buggy 

National Geographic Solar Moon Buggy is a must-have for space enthusiasts here. 

This wooden model kit is a fantastic way to inspire and broaden your interest in space exploration, model-building, and engineering. 

All you need to do is assemble this 3D lunar vehicle model kit. What’s excellent about this is that it’s solar-powered. Once assembled, the Solar Moon Buggy will move on its own in direct sunlight!

Do you have other STEM toys in mind that you feel should have made our list? Comment down below and share them with others!

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What is Safe Search and How to Use it.

Safe Search

Safe Search is a Google based program (they call it SafeSearch™) intended to filter out adult material when children are using the internet. It does this by disallowing pages of sites that contain certain unacceptable words as well as by blocking certain websites completely. They also have a very advanced method of looking at images and video to determine if they contain adult content.

SafeSearch works with search engines that have been designed for it, such as KidzSearch.com, although other engines, including Google.com itself support it . However, when KidzSearch is selected as the search engine, SafeSearch is automatically turned on to the highest level of filtering and will always be activated while KidzSearch is being used.

While many people just use Google.com and set filtering to Strict, you need to be aware that even Google’s most strict setting is made for a general audience and not focused on children. As a way of dealing with this, KidzSearch provides several additional layers of filtering to make it suitable for kids.  In today’s world, new words and sometimes even innocent words can suddenly have pornographic meanings. KidzSearch has the ability to quickly become aware of these words, including their spelling variations, in their 10,000+ proprietary keyword database. This is one of the main reason 1000’s of schools trust and use KidzSearch on a daily basis, making it the most popular online safe search website.

This is accomplished through continuous field reports by teachers, parents and a proprietary algorithm evaluating what is being viewed and searched. Any search terms found to be leading to adult material are of course put into the database and used for filtering purposes.

SafeSearch is an important tool designed to keep pornography away from students when they research a project or fulfill an assignment on the internet.  You should choose a SafeSearch children’s search engine that provides the best academic results with the highest level of safety. We feel KidzSearch.com fits this criteria exactly.

School Bullying – A Very Serious Problem

bullying-1

School bullying. Some just say it is part of school life, but for many kids it represents a form of pure mental and physical torture that in extreme cases is enough to result in suicidal acts. Sadly, over 20% of bullying victims actually consider suicide as a way out of it. Victims may also lash out with violence, such as school shootings that are often connected with bullying. Schools definitely need to take responsibility and deal with the situation better. According to dosomething.org, over 3.2 millions kids each year are bullied.  Every day about 160,000 kids are not attending class because of bullying. Close to 20% of all students report being bullied 2 or 3 times each month. 90% of students in grades 4-8 report being a bully victim at one time or another.

Cyberbullying is a newer form of harassment that just makes the problem worse, since it allows a much wider group who may not even know each other to participate in the bullying. Online bullying can take the form of e-mails, text messages, instant messages and chat rooms. Cyberbullies might post private pictures and text about the victim, or in some cases masquerade the identify of the victim and post hurtful things that appear to come from them. The impact of cyberbullying can be very far reaching with the speed that content can spread online. Kids are often scared to tell adults about the bullying with only 1 in 3 of them talking about it.

One of the most startling statistics relates to teachers. Only 4% percent of teachers will intervene when bullying is taking place and a quarter of teachers surveyed see nothing wrong with it! Schools must be held responsible. Parents trust that their children will be properly cared for when they are dropped off. How can we expect students to focus on studying and achievement when they are often afraid to even attend class?

The U.S. Government has even gotten involved and now has an anti-bullying website where they suggest that educators, parents and fellow students all get involved to help stop it. The first step is to try to identify when a student is being bullied. Since most will not tell you, you need to look for signs that may include:

    • Unexplained injuries.
    • Lost, missing or destroyed books, clothing, etc.
    • Students that often complain about being sick, or try to fake an illness.
    • Skipping meals. Avoiding school lunches. Hiding in the library for safety.
    • Difficulty sleeping and nightmares.
    • Declining grades. Not wanting to go to school.
    • Sudden loss of friends or avoiding social situations.
    • Low self esteem.
    • Destructive behavior, such as hurting themselves or taking about suicide.

How Do We Stop It?

How do we go about protecting our children?  We at KidzSearch see two main solutions. The first would be to just police the schools and take action whenever warning signs are noticed. The second approach would rely on better communication. The former approach might be best when dealing with severe bullying. Physical abuse should not be tolerated. Schools need to report them to authorities for further action. While it may seem harsh, it is actually no different than what would take place in any company or business if an employee became physically abusive towards another employee, or even gave verbal threats.

Teachers are often the ones most likely to see bullying and need to take action and report it before it gets out of control. However, the same holds true for any school employee. It should be part of their job description. Those who don’t follow it risk losing their position or other disciplinary action. When students see the serious outcomes from bullying, such as getting publicly arrested in front of others, or perhaps even getting expelled from school, they are going to be much less likely to do it themselves. Perhaps a three strikes law is appropriate, so they get up to two warnings before police authorities are called. However, if a child is getting physically abused by a bully, justification to report it without any warnings seems appropriate for the safety of the student.

Other students should also get involved. Anonymous tip lines can be set up to protect those students who care enough to report it. Bullying rarely happens in isolation, so it is very likely that other students are aware of the bullying and can report it.

While policing may be the only solution for some cases, better communication can also make a difference. There are many organizations, often supported by popular celebrities, that make it seem “not cool” to be a bully. For example, Stop Bullying, Speak Up has students take a pledge that involves

  • Telling an adult when they see bullying.
  • Being friendly to the victims and letting them know it that it is not their fault and that help is available.
  • Encouraging other students to get involved and speak up about bullying.

Assuming there is no physical harm, in some cases empowering the victim to rise above things, such as getting them to understand how weak bullies really are and that things will get better if they just focus on themselves. One can view feedback from fellow students on a KidzSearch forum thread regarding ways to better deal with bullying. One of the most popular answers given by students on this thread was as follows:

“My best advice is to just RISE ABOVE IT.  Focus on your own goals and achievements and just ignore all those losers bothering you. Your day will come and you will shine above them all. They will live a life of shame that they did this too you.”

Perhaps the best approach is a mixture of policing, better communication, and finding ways to boost the self-esteem of bully victims so they are not as likely to be as much of a victim.

GETTING HELP
Here are some good resources for getting more information about bullying.

Bystander Revolution – Great site devoted to anti-bullying.

DoSomething.org
 – A site with over 4 million members helping to stop bullying.

StopBullying.gov
 – Government website for getting help.

If a student is being seriously bullied and perhaps possibly thinking about suicide, these are some helpful phone numbers and links they can use. If the issue is urgent, 911 or local police should be called.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-TALK or
1-800-273-8255
Important help for anyone in a crisis situation thinking about suicide. Topics they handle include addiction, relationship and family problems, sexual orientation, abuse, depression, and loneliness.


Trevor Lifeline – LGBTQ
1-866-488-7386
thetrevorproject.org
Crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people.

Anonymous School Violence Hotline
1-866-SPEAK-UP
speakup.com
Student hotline for safe anonymous reporting of threats and violence in school and their community.

Your Life Your Voice
1-800-448-3000
Help with depression, cutting, eating disorders, addiction, violence, sexual abuse, bullying, family relationships, and other issues.

Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-422-4453
Support and information for children and those concerned about them.

National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
1-800-331-9474
Support for teens in relationships.