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It’s Thanksgiving week and time for some of the biggest sales of the year! Black Friday is no longer just a day, but a week(s) long savings event before Christmas. I never know where to start with the Black Friday sales, so I often turn to gift guides for ideas.

This 2025 STEAM Gift Guide is a compilation of all our STEAM favorites: books, toys, and more for kids AND adults. Everything in this guide has been read, tested, and approved by me and my kids. Shop for your kids, and then treat yourself to something special too! You can find all these items and more in my lists on my Amazon Storefront!

STEAM Books for Kids

We love reading! I have read many STEAM themed books to my kids over the years, and I’ve even written my own guided journal. Check out my STEAM Books page to see all our book reviews.

Here are our top 12 STEAM book recommendations:

1. STEAM Activity Journal: A guided notebook to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math, create your own experiments, plus many pages for notes, drawings, and designs. It’s a perfect gift for kids ages 8-14. It is available on Amazon (free shipping with Prime membership).
2. Who Would Win: Battle Royale: My son loved the Who Would Win books in 1st through 3rd grades. He learned so much about predators with these books and this book was one of his favorites.
3. Halley Harper, Science Girl Extraordinaire: Summer Set in Motion: The first in the Halley Harper series about a curious 9 year old girl and her (mis)adventures in science as she goes to her first sleep away camp. My son and I read and loved the entire series and we highly recommend it for kids in 3rd grade and up.
4. Ada Lace: This is a boxed set of all 6 Ada Lace books. It follows a STEM loving girl who solves problems and mysteries in her neighborhood. It’s great for younger elementary school aged kids. My daughter enjoyed reading these books starting in 1st or 2nd grade.
5. Rosie Revere, Engineer: one of our all-time favorite picture books (we love the whole Questioneers series). The rhymes make reading it out loud to kids fun for you and the kids. We love Rosie’s engineering mind, perseverance and courage.
6. The Encyclopedia of Animals: This is my 3rd grade daughter’s favorite book. She has post it notes marking her favorite animals, and she is always reading it to learn new facts about animals. I love when she sits with me and tells me about all the new animal facts she learned in her book.
7. The Science Spell Book: A book of 30 science experiments for kids. I bought this book for my kids, and I love look at the beautiful photos for each experiment. We have taken inspiration from this book for several STEAM activities I have shared on the blog. Its an enchanting experiment book!
8. Composition Book: Smart Girl Power: This is a wide ruled notebook for girls made by my sister-in-law. It has a cute and inspiring cover for smart girls to write anything they can dream of.
9. The Big Book of Birds: My kids went through a bird phase where they wanted to learn all about birds. I bought this book for them and it quickly became a favorite! The illustrations are BEAUTIFUL, and it features many kinds of birds.
10. Rox’s Secret Code: We have had this book for years and it has been a favorite picture book for all 3 of my kids. It’s a great story about the good and bad side of AI: Rox creates a robot that uses AI to do her chores, and it eventually gets out of control.
11. I am Benjamin Franklin: This is a great book for kid who like learning about historical figures. My son has read this book many times. Just like all the books in the Ordinary People Change the World series, this book tells Benjamin Franklin’s life story in a thoughtful and accessible way for kids. We loved learning how he used paddles to swim faster and learned about lightening and electricity with his kite and the lightening rod.
12. Unstoppable Me: We love this picture book that teaches girls self confidence and empowerment, written by my friend. This book beautifully teaches that it Is so important for girls to believe in and appreciate themselves and celebrate differences between them and others.

You can view these 12 STEAM books, plus almost 40 more STEAM books we love and recommend on my Amazon list here.

STEAM Toys for Kids

These toys have all been tested and approved by my tough-to-please kids. Some STEAM toys are educational, but aren’t as fun as you hope they will be. The toys on this list are FUN and educational, but the focus is on FUN. You can find reviews for many of these toys on my STEAM Toys page.

Here are our top 10 STEAM toy recommendations:

1. Dominoes: My kids and I love setting up and toppling dominoes. The possibilities are endless. You can do any design, shape, or structure, add in a chain reaction, and then happily watch all your hard work come toppling down. It takes patience, a steady hand, and more patience, but it’s such a fun and educational toy for big kids.
2. Snap Circuits: My kids were gifted this set a few years ago, and I never could have guessed how much they would enjoy it. It’s so cool to build the circuits and watch as you make a light turn on, or a sound is played, or It shoots up a flier.
3. Flower Garden Building Set: This has been a favorite toy of my girls for years and it is my go-to gift for girls ages 3-7. It is such a fun building set. Kids can build beautiful flower gardens of many shapes and sizes and there is much room for learning and imaginative play with this set.
4. LEGO Happy Plants: My 9 year old daughter saw this LEGO set and had to have it! It’s so cute and makes a great decoration in her room. I love for my kids to build LEGOS: they are learning to follow directions (if you don’t follow closely it won’t turn out right), and they are learning to visualize in 3D.
5. LEGO Classic Building Set: My kids and I love the cute pre-designed LEGO sets, but I also love and highly recommend the LEGO Classic sets for kids. These sets are more open-ended: they come with bricks in a variety of shapes and colors. They do include instructions for a few building ideas, but there are plenty or bricks to do open-ending building and play as well.
6. Story Time Chess: I never played chess growing up, but I wanted my kids to learn. I didn’t know how to teach them and one of my friends recommended this set. We enjoyed reading the story as they learned to play, and because I read the story to my kids I also learned the basics of how to play. It teaches the basic rules, and once they learn that they can begin to think about strategy.
7. Wikki Stix STEM pak: I really like Wikki Stix for open-ended imaginative play for kids. It’s similar to LEGOS, or play dough, where you can mold it into anything you can dream of. I like that this pack is STEM themed and has instructions for STEM themed projects with the Wikki Stix.
8. 3Doodler Start: This is a 3D printer pen for kids. It doesn’t get hot where it could burn kids and it’s easy to use for kids to learn to create 3D shapes with it. It’s perfect for artistic kids who want to make their drawings and doodles into 3D creations.
9. MAGNA-TILES: MAGNA-TILES have always been a favorite toy for my kids and me. We love the ease of building with the magnetic tiles, and I appreciate the quality of the brand (I’ve never worried about the small magnets falling out and becoming a danger to my kids). The building possibilities are endless: our favorite way to build is making towers as tall as possible and then knocking them down.
10. Coding Critters: This is a fun introduction to coding for younger kids (4+). My kids loved learning how the buttons on top of the dog work like code to make it move where they want it to go. It’s so cute and fun for young kids to play with while they are subliminally learning coding basics.

You can view these 10 STEAM toys, plus almost 30 more STEAM toys we love and recommend on my Amazon list here.

STEAM Gifts for Adults

Maybe you’re shopping for a spouse, friend, sister, brother, or yourself. I sometimes buy more for myself than my kids when I’m doing Black Friday shopping because I love a good sale.

These are my top 11 STEAM and/or parent themed gifts:

1. 3D printer: This is at the top of my wish list this year! I’ve been wanting a 3D printer for years, but the cost and fear of the unknown have kept me from purchasing it. My friend has this 3D printer and highly recommended it to me, so when I do get one, this is the one I plan to buy.
2. LEGO Botanicals Flower Arrangement: If you know me, you know I love the LEGO botanical flowers. I own every LEGO botanical flower set available right now, and this is my favorite! The flowers are beautiful and I like that they sit in a LEGO base, so I didn’t need to find a vase to put them in. I highly recommend this set!
3. The Love Hypothesis: I love a good romance novel, and this book combines scientists and romance – so obviously I am the target audience. I enjoyed this sweet and silly romance, and love that the characters are educated and relatable.
4. One Line a Day 5 Year Journal: My husband bought me this journal for my first mother’s day and it was one of the best gifts I have ever received. I am now on the first year of my 3rd journal since I’ve been a mom for 11 years, and it has become part of my bedtime routine to write in the journal every night. I look forward to reading snip-its of my day from the previous years and it’s so fun to see when things change, grow and sometimes repeat or stay the same over the years.
5. Nespresso Vertuo Pop+: I am powered by coffee everyday – I usually have 2-3 cups a day. I have a grind and brew coffee maker that we love, but my husband got me this Nespresso last year and I love it to make a quick mid-morning or afternoon pick-me-up. The Nespresso coffees are so good and I like how foamy it gets with this maker.
6. LEGO Botanicals Orchid: This is another LEGO Botanical flower set that I highly recommend. I have built and displayed this set at home, and have gifted this set to my sister. It is one of those gifts where you can’t go wrong – the recipient is sure to love this (and probably become obsessed with LEGO botanicals)!
7. Good Inside: This is a book that I think is great for all parents to read. It reminds us that these are kids who are still learning and it’s ok and safe to make mistakes and have big emotions at their age. Most importantly, we need to remember that all kids are good inside. I really needed this book when I was having a hard time with my kids a few years ago, and it helped me tremendously.
8. LEGO Ideas Minerals Collection: This is a new LEGO set that I don’t have yet. I saw it at Target recently and was immediately drawn to how beautiful and realistic the minerals looked. It is such a cool and unique set to add to a LEGO collection, I think my son would love this set as much as I would.
9. So you F*cked Up: A pep talk for when you’ve made a mistake: A childhood friend of mine wrote this book, so I bought it to support her. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it, and how much I needed to read the words in this book as a mom who often feels like I’m getting it all wrong. It is filled with affirmations and words of advice to help you move on from mistakes. Sometimes it is so hard to get over a big mistake, and this helps you realize it isn’t the end of the world and you can move on.
10. LEGO Poinsettia: I got this set last Christmas and truly enjoyed building it and displaying it for the holidays. It’s fun to build, and makes the perfect holiday decoration. I plan to display mine every year for Christmas.
11. Life Blooms Journal: A 5×8 journal for easy portability. Throw it in your purse to use for shopping lists, thoughts, reminders, etc. I always have a journal around to take notes during phone calls, appointments, meetings, etc.

You can view these 11 gifts, plus almost 40 more STEAM gifts for adults in my Amazon list here.

I hope my 2025 Gift Guide helped give you ideas for gifts for kids or yourself. What’s at the top of your wish list this year?

Be sure to check out and follow my Amazon Storefront to keep up to date with all my STEAM gift recommendations!

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