Top Brands: Sphero - Wonder Workshop - Makeblock - Amazon Kids
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
NEWS$show=/search/label/news
Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.
REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review
Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family.
There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for?
We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.
GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.
PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project
Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.
STEM$show=/search/label/stem
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.
CODING$show=/search/label/coding
Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.
ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics
We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware.
Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions.
Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.
ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics
We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them.
Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available.
Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.
MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making
We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun.
The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something.
We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.
Do you know a child who is learning to program in Scratch. We do! We've put together a list of gifts that young coders will love. Some are in the pocket money or stocking stuffer price range while others are in the more expensive main birthday or Christmas range.
These gift ideas will give kids the opportunity to take build real-world projects using Scratch, learn about robotics and gain deeper computer science knowledge. And of course have lots of fun!
Scratch is suitable for kids from around 6 years of age with support with age 8-14 being the core age range. There are plenty of older Scratch coders too. Scratch is proper programming and there's lots to learn, especially if you add some fun accessories.
MaKey MaKey turns physical objects that conduct electricity into inputs for your Scratch projects. You can control a game with playdough buttons or build a banana piano.
We backed the MaKey MaKey Kickstarter and it works brilliantly with Scratch. We recently built a game for learning phonics with tin foil letters, we've got Cub Scouts to build a banana piano and we've run kids hack days with Scratch and MaKey MaKey.
Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math by Majed Marji takes kids from the Scratch basics through to more advanced concepts.
Kids who already have some Scratch experience will still learn plenty from this book which has lots of fun projects to follow along with.
We also recommend Super Scratch Programming Adventure as an introduction to programming with Scratch.
These mini wireless keyboard make brilliant remote controls for Scratch projects. They are USB-rechargeable and you just plug in a mini dongle to a PC or laptop to connect.
When my older son was learning his times tables we made a physical bingo card card with Scratch bingo caller. We used the wireless keyboard down on the floor where we were playing the game to trigger the calling from a nearby PC.
mBot is one of our favourite programmable robots and its MakeBlock software is based on Scratch 2.0.
Getting a mBot for your young coder will enable them to take their Scratch knowledge and learn robotics. Read our full review of the mBot to find out more.
My younger son is currently working on a robot dog and he has recorded Ruby's bark. The speaker also has a microphone so we've written a program in Scratch that plays the bark sound when the noise level goes over a threshold. Now we've got a portable bark box which responds to sound.
We use an ultra-mini speaker with the mBot robot and Scratch. We've also got a Bluetooth shower speaker which we have used for projects where the speaker needs to be outdoors.
We're big fans of littleBits here at Tech Age Kids. They are small electronics components that snap together easily.
littleBits can be used without any coding to make lots of cool things.
But if you get the Arduino module then you can also connect littleBits to Scratch so that kids can program their inventions.
These gift ideas will give kids the opportunity to take build real-world projects using Scratch, learn about robotics and gain deeper computer science knowledge. And of course have lots of fun!
Scratch is suitable for kids from around 6 years of age with support with age 8-14 being the core age range. There are plenty of older Scratch coders too. Scratch is proper programming and there's lots to learn, especially if you add some fun accessories.
MaKey MaKey
MaKey MaKey turns physical objects that conduct electricity into inputs for your Scratch projects. You can control a game with playdough buttons or build a banana piano.
We backed the MaKey MaKey Kickstarter and it works brilliantly with Scratch. We recently built a game for learning phonics with tin foil letters, we've got Cub Scouts to build a banana piano and we've run kids hack days with Scratch and MaKey MaKey.
Learn to Program with Scratch
Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math by Majed Marji takes kids from the Scratch basics through to more advanced concepts.
Kids who already have some Scratch experience will still learn plenty from this book which has lots of fun projects to follow along with.
We also recommend Super Scratch Programming Adventure as an introduction to programming with Scratch.
Mini Wireless Keyboard
These mini wireless keyboard make brilliant remote controls for Scratch projects. They are USB-rechargeable and you just plug in a mini dongle to a PC or laptop to connect.
When my older son was learning his times tables we made a physical bingo card card with Scratch bingo caller. We used the wireless keyboard down on the floor where we were playing the game to trigger the calling from a nearby PC.
mBot
Getting a mBot for your young coder will enable them to take their Scratch knowledge and learn robotics. Read our full review of the mBot to find out more.
Bluetooth Speaker
A mini bluetooth speaker makes a fantastic Scratch accessory. You might need to install additional drivers to get them to work with a PC so make sure you set it up in advance (we needed to install the Broadcom bluetooth package.)My younger son is currently working on a robot dog and he has recorded Ruby's bark. The speaker also has a microphone so we've written a program in Scratch that plays the bark sound when the noise level goes over a threshold. Now we've got a portable bark box which responds to sound.
We use an ultra-mini speaker with the mBot robot and Scratch. We've also got a Bluetooth shower speaker which we have used for projects where the speaker needs to be outdoors.
littleBits Arduino Coding Kit
We're big fans of littleBits here at Tech Age Kids. They are small electronics components that snap together easily.
littleBits can be used without any coding to make lots of cool things.
But if you get the Arduino module then you can also connect littleBits to Scratch so that kids can program their inventions.
Have Fun with Scratch
Hopefully that has given you some ideas on gifts that will be fun for kids who are learning to code in Scratch or to introduce some new options to those who are already experts.
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- sphero mini
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- animation
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- app toy
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- battling robots
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- big kids
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- flutterbye fairy
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- gifts
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- halloween costumes
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- hexbug project
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- history
- home
- home education
- homeschool
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- html
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- ipad mini
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- k'nex robotics
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- keyboard
- kickstarter
- kids
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- kindle fire
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- kits
- kodu
- kubo
- label printer
- languages
- laptop
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- little kids
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- logiblocs
- logic
- logical thinking
- loom
- machines
- magnetic
- make it
- makeblock
- makedo
- maker
- makey makey
- making
- mardles
- mars
- mars rover
- marty
- math
- maths
- mbot
- mbot ranger
- me arm
- meccano
- meccanoid
- meccanoid 2.0
- merge vr
- mews
- michael faraday
- micro:bit
- microbit
- microcontroller
- microscope
- microsoft
- middle school
- miles kelly
- mindstorms
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- minecraft mods
- mixed reality
- mobile
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- motors
- mover kit
- movie
- movies
- mu
- mu toys
- munzee
- music
- my first robot
- national dog day
- nature
- new
- new year
- news
- news coding
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- ohbot
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- on the web
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- osmo
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- parenting
- parrot
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- people
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- pets
- phone
- photography
- photon
- physics
- pi day
- picks
- pimoroni
- pinoccio
- pixel kit
- pixelart
- play
- playstation 4
- plezmo
- pocket code
- pocket money
- pokemon
- pokemon go
- poll
- pre order
- pre-teens
- prehistory
- preschoolers
- primary
- printable
- products
- professor einstein
- programming
- project
- projects
- puzzles
- python
- racing
- raspberry pi
- reading
- reivew
- remote control
- research
- resource
- resources
- retro
- review
- rights
- robot
- robot dog
- robot fish
- robot wars
- ROBOTERRA
- roboticals
- robotics
- robots
- role models
- role play
- romo
- romotive
- root
- rover
- safety
- sam labs
- samuel morse
- sandbox
- schools
- science
- scratch
- scratchjr
- screen time
- screenless
- screens
- sensors
- servos
- simbrix
- skills
- skylanders
- skylanders superchargers
- skylanders swap force
- smart pens
- smartphone
- smartwatch
- snap circuits
- social media
- solar power
- soldering
- sonic pi
- sony koov
- sound
- space
- sparki
- speaker
- speech sythesis
- sphero
- sphero mini
- spider
- star wars
- stars
- STEAM
- stem
- stikbot
- stop motion
- stop motion studio
- storage
- story
- strawbees
- students
- subscription
- subscriptions
- sugru
- summer
- swift
- tablet
- tablets
- tangible coding
- tech
- tech age
- tech craft
- tech is bad
- tech is good
- tech toys
- tech will save us
- technology
- technology will save us
- teens
- teknikio
- tekno
- teksta
- tenka labs
- tesla
- textiles
- thames & kosmos
- the extraordinaires
- tim berners lee
- tinkercad
- tinybop
- toddlers
- toot-toot
- top pick
- touch
- toy
- toys
- travelling
- TTS
- TV
- tween
- tweens
- tynker
- typing
- ux
- vehicles
- videos
- view-master
- views
- virtual reality
- voice assistants
- voice recognition
- vr
- vtech
- web
- websites
- wifi
- wii
- wii u
- windows 8
- wonder workshop
- wowwee
- writing
- writing. education
- xbox one
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