We often get asked what are our favorite “toys that teach,” as parents start thinking about gifts for the holidays. Most toys do teach young children something — working on strengthening those fine motor finger muscles, encouraging creativity and imagination, teaching social skills, and of course language, math and science (STEM) concepts.

Some toys capture the attention of our kiddos at school better than others. And with the holidays and Black Friday on the horizon, here’s our (not exhaustive) list of our favorites. We’ll add to this periodically as we discover new faves.

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Alphabet Robots (Amazon $31.97) — These are a big favorite! They work those finger muscles that are so important for writing, typing and all sort of grasping tasks. We love incorporating these with gears, engineering, building and even space-themed units.

Magna Tiles (Amazon — set pictured $116.75) — Our Magna Tiles set was so popular at our school, we had to invest in another set so more than one classroom could use them at a time. They can be made into just about anything, and they are practically indestructible. One of our teachers’ favorite holiday activities is to provide the kiddos with a bowl of large metal jingle bells that stick to the magnets in the tiles. Our kiddos love using them to make their creations more festive in the holiday season.

HABA Animal Upon Animal Stacking Game (Amazon $24.99) — These wooden wild animals are a “hoot”! Stacking the wooden animals (whether you play the game the way the instructions say or just freeform it), provides a healthy dose of problem solving and spatial awareness skills, as well as oodles of giggles. And we love it with a wild animals, habitats, zoo animals or nocturnal animals lesson unit.

Discovery Toys Marbleworks (Amazon $54.95) — This marble rollercoaster set is a massive hit in our classroom. It teaches so many STEM concepts: physics, gravity, simple machines, inertia, velocity & speed, balance, building concepts and more. It also reinforces and rewards children for experimenting and following the scientific method: forming a hypothesis, testing it, making changes, and testing again. We like the Discovery Toys set because it is durable and the pieces fit together well. And as an added bonus — the marbles emit a satisfying clacking sound the entire way down. Winner winner.

Squigz (Amazon $49.95) — We’re all about dual threats around here, and this STEM gem is not only fun to build with, but the sucker-sound the Squigz make when they connect with each other or a table is not to be missed. It’s delightful. These are a fun, different kind of building toy that will elicit giggles galore.

Popular Playthings Magnetic Mix or Match Vehicles Green Air, Land, Sea Set; Space Set; Train Set; Fire & Rescue Set (Amazon $32.99-$59.99) — Mix and match vehicle parts to create brand new innovative vehicles! We have linked the large Air, Land, Sea set above, as well as smaller individual sets with single themes. We have 3 different individual theme sets at school and we recommend if you’re going with the smaller sets that you choose at least two different ones for your kiddos to really explore the coolness of these toys.

Coogam Wooden Geoboard w/Pattern Cards & Latex Bands (Amazon, $21.99) — Geoboards are a favorite because kiddos can create their own pictures, shapes and designs, and replicate more complex images in the included cards. It’s a great toy for fine motor muscles workouts, spatial reasoning and focus.