Best Gifts for a 6 Year Old Boy

A tin lunch box like this Captain America Large Tin Tote makes a good gift for a six year old. They could use it to put their lunch in, but I think it's more likely to be used to store favorite possessions. 

By this age a lot of boys have collections of stuff. They might have little super hero characters or collecting cards. They might have mementos from special days out that they have collected like pencils and buttons. And party favors they have been given at parties. 

They also start to have toys with much smaller pieces that need to be kept together. A tin tote featuring one of their favorite characters is a great place to store special treasures. This is a practical gift which parents will appreciate. Maybe they'll even keep things a bit tider. 

Most kids this age love to see a rocket shoot up in the air very fast. Even better if they caused it by jumping on the launcher!

The Geospace Jump Rocket - Launcher and 3 Rocket Set is a great toy for getting kids outside running around and having some fun. It's a a gift that the whole family will enjoy too. And a good toy to get out when hard-to-entertain friends come to visit. 

Lots of six year old boys are into Star Wars. If they haven't discovered Star Wars yet then now is a good time! 

The Star Wars Storm Trooper alarm clock is great fun and will even help them get out of bed in the morning. 

It's a fully functioning alarm clock in the shape of a large LEGO Star Wars minifigure! The Storm Trooper has moving joints so you can make him sit or stand and put him into various positions. 

The LEGO alarm clocks come in other designs too so you can choose a different Star Wars character or a character from one of the other LEGO themes. 

Continuing with the LEGO idea, my son adores LEGO. He would be happy with any kind of LEGO set. Note that a child who plays with LEGO a lot and has experience building LEGO models will probably cope with LEGO sets for children older than their age. 

LEGO Ninjago is very popular with my son and his friends. They just love the Ninja-themed LEGO with it's game and back story. 

A good set for a six-year-old is the LEGO Ninjago Training Set from the new snakes theme. The set include a reasonable-sized model to build, and also has a Kendo Kai minifigure (he's the most popular ninja) and spinner for the Spinjitzu game. 

When you've built the model it's a Spinjitzu practice area. At 6 kids should be ready to have a go a spinning the spinners but will probably need quite a bit of practice to get good at it. 

We've just been to a science magic show which my son loved. Lots of entertaining 'magic' tricks with some science explaining how it's done. 

The Scientific Explorer's The Magic Science for Wizards Only is a fun way to teach kids a bit of science while having lots of fun!

If you're going to choose a gift like this then you need to make sure that there's an adult in the house who is willing to supervise and help with the experiments. Or maybe it's an activity you could share with the child you are buying a gift for. E.g. for some grandpa and grandson bonding time. 

Most kids enjoy drawing. A drawing projector projects an image from a slide onto paper so kids can use it as a guide for drawing. This means that they can draw more accurate pictures than they can freehand and then they can learn to draw those picture on their own. 

My son loves to draw and it's definitely a skill we would like him to develop. 

The Alex Toys Draw like A Pro drawing projector comes with lots of images and projects to complete. It gets good reviews too. 

A logic puzzle game is good for developing logical thinking skills and ThinkFun Rush Hour Jr. is a great choice for this age group. 

It's a one-player puzzle game where you set up the board according to a game card and then have to move the vehicles following the rules to free the ice-cream truck (a goal that will appeal to kids!)

The game is very portable so it's a makes a good travel toy. It has increasing levels of difficulty so it should keep them entertained for hours!

My son has his eye on a Nintendo DS. I've given him my old GameBoy Advance and if he's enjoying that then he might just get a Nintendo 3DS for his sixth birthday. He's crazy about Super Mario. His favorite color is red so he'll want the flame red version. 

He will not be allowed to use the 3D feature at first (it's only recommended for older children) but I think it's a better investment to buy the latest console. You can use a Nintendo 3DS without the 3D feature. 

My view on kids having handheld games consoles? Awesome in moderation. They're great for coordination and logic skills and they're fun. Like TV, gaming will be restricted in our house.