For Cyber Monday this year, I decided to try something different. Instead of wading solo through the sea of dubious toys, gadgets, and gizmos that go on sale, I called on Mallory Kennedy, a pediatric occupational therapist and owner of Portland, Oregon-based The Sensory Nest. Together, we looked at the list of the most popular Cyber Monday toy deals from major retailers.

I wanted to find toys that were not, in short, crap—ones that helped your children developmentally or wouldn’t become blinky garbage in a few days. We tested these by playing with our own children. If our kids didn’t like them, I’m not going to recommend them for yours. That’s in addition to the years of ongoing testing that the WIRED Gear team does. Our recommendations are also cross-referenced with our buying guides and gift guides and use a suite of price-tracking tools to pinpoint the best deals. Happy holiday shopping! Make sure you check out our live Cyber Monday deals tracker for more.

WIRED Featured Deals

The Best Toy Deal

Photograph: Particula

This is probably one of the best toys that I’ve ever tested (and one that needs to go into the next update of our Best STEM Toys for Kids). The Bluetooth-connected portable board has pieces that feel wonderfully matte and heavy to play with. It connects to the GoChess app on your phone, which is integrated with Lichess and Chess.com. You can play against other people or get AI-enabled suggestions in person, and the pieces light up. My 7- and 9-year-old have been playing against each other for weeks, as an AI’s suggestions are a lot less annoying than Mommy’s.

Other Toy Deals

Photograph: Tonies

The Toniebox is the best kids speaker for younger kids. It’s a durable, squishy, Wi-Fi connected cube. When your kid places different “Tonie” figures on top of the cube, it plays songs and stories that are associated with the Tonies. Your kids will also play with the Tonies as toys, and you can also have grandparents or other family members record up to 90 minutes reading to the kids or other audio messages.

Photograph: Amazon

The Yoto is the best kids speaker for (slightly) older kids, and it has a few differences from the Toniebox. There’s a pixelated clock display and the content is a bit more mixed—for example, you can get sleep sounds, kid-friendly radio, and a daily podcast in addition to stories and songs. This version is the tiny, even-more-portable version from the larger one that we tested.

Photograph: Amazon

Toy instant cameras are different from higher-quality ones because the lenses are plastic, not glass. The image quality is noticeably worse on this than on the Instax cameras I’ve tried. However, if your child is 5, they will be delighted. The battery lasted for a whole afternoon’s worth of photography, printouts are on BPA-free paper, and there are even a few onboard games.

This is a small but significant discount on a marker set that my 9-year-old is currently obsessed with. It’s water-based ink, so it will cause significantly less damage to whatever surface your child is drawing on (I hate that I know this) and it’s double-tipped, with both a fine-line tip for intricate line work and a broader tip for filling things in. The pigment flows smoothly and evenly. This will be great if hand-drawing holiday cards is in your game plan.

Clay is also part of our Best STEM Toys guide, but my kids like the air dry version better than the polymer one because it’s super soft and light, and you don’t have to bake it. It’s not as sturdy or heavy as the polymer version, but it also holds up to making tiny little dots on your mushrooms or stuffy television sets or what have you.

Photograph: Amazon

Amazon and Walmart are both full of these little kits that promise to entertain kids and teach them skills at the same time. Of the ones I called in, this was the biggest hit, and it provides hand soap for your reluctant guests for years to come! Melt the soap blocks in a microwave-safe dish and mix them with whatever fragrances, glitter, or dyes you want. Even if it makes a mess in the sink, it cleans up easily, because it’s soap!

Image: loogguitars.com

Playing music has also been shown to stimulate neural development (and is also just fun). Loog Guitars is currently holding a sitewide Cyber Monday sale for 40 percent off. My kids are currently testing the Beatles + Loog electric guitar set and the company even sent the tiny amp! This is cheating a little bit because my kids already play the piano and violin, but they find Loog’s music instruction to be fun and easy to follow. (It’s also an excuse to get on the iPad, grrr.)

Guardian Bikes is currently holding a Cyber Monday sale. If your kid is learning how to ride a bike, I strongly urge you to buy a lighter one than the ones from Target or Walmart. A bike from Guardian or Woom is not that much more expensive and it weighs around 10 pounds less. Guardian also has a patented SureStop brake system which means the rear wheel will always brake before the front wheel, so your kid will never flip over. It works, and I know this because I gave it to a 20-year-old ding-dong to test in an empty parking garage, and he couldn’t flip it.

Photograph: Amazon

This rock tumbler is perfect for any aspiring rock hound, and we say as much in our STEM toys buying guide. The kit includes four levels of grit, plus a bag of rough gemstones so they can get started tumbling during Christmas break. According to Amazon reviews, some adults who’ve been putting rocks in their pockets for decades also use and like this tumbler.

You may have noticed sensory toys popping up at your kids’ school and goody bags; as the name suggests, they help children stimulate one or more of their senses, which helps them engage motor skills and just calm them down in general. Both Mallory’s and my children love these toys, which also teach color recognition and counting. However, my kids are 7 and 9 and busted them almost immediately with their giant ham hands. (They’ve lasted almost a year in Mallory’s office).

Photograph: Sphero

OK, I know I said I hate twinkly, blinky one-trick ponies, but I make an exception for Sphero because the company’s toys are just so delightful. My colleague Simon Hill’s wife uses this coding ball as a classroom aid to teach basic coding skills to 9-year-olds and older. It’s adorable and can move and navigate mazes through infrared communication.

Building Toy Deals

Photograph: Clixo

Any building toy is great for encouraging creativity and hand-eye coordination. Reviewer Simon Hill tested the Clixo sets with his family and found the pieces to be durable, flexible, washable, and colorful. You don’t need a flat surface to build so you can play with them anywhere. They also come in themed sets that have glow-in-the-dark pieces.

Photograph: Amazon

Magna-Tiles may be expensive (a little less expensive now) but the return on investment is staggering. We bought our daughter’s first set when she was 2 or 3 and enjoyed making little 2D ice cream cones or hats. Now she’s 9 and still pulls out the bin regularly. There’s also a ton of different themed sets (also on sale) if you need more specialized pieces for race courses or jungles.

Photograph: Amazon

We are documented Lego fans here and Lego recently announced a multiyear collaboration with F1. Can’t wait until January to get your hands on the new Lego City F1 sets? Whet your appetite with preexisting Lego Speed Champions sets. Give me a minifig of Oscar Piastri! Give the people what they want!

As I wrote in our guide to Lego Gifts, my 7-year-old is currently obsessed with Star Wars. Sales events are always a good time to stock up on the more expensive sets, as $160 for a full retail price is a bit out of my budget for a second-grader. This one has spring-loaded shooters and seven mini-figures, and I expect it will make his year and also ruin my life.

Lego is having a Cyber Monday sale. While this doesn’t precisely help me get my Marvel-obsessed son the Avengers tower, many of the offerings are very cute and seasonal. How cute is this wreath? And how much better is it to build one, rather than buying one at the store?

Wooden building blocks are always a great idea for younger kids, as it encourages imaginative play and motor skills. This is a large 75-piece set that will entertain someone small for a very long time. Make sure that you pick ones that are ASTM-certified and made from 100 percent wood, as there is a large chance that these will end up being gnawed on by either human or animal.

Gaming Deals

Photograph: Amazon

Reviewer Simon Hill notes that this is the simplest game to start off with in his Best Board Games roundup. It was designed by a German psychologist and you can change the maze by pushing one tile on and another tile off with every turn.

Inspired by the Royal Palace of Evora in Portugal, with its Moorish blue-and-white ceramic tiles, this board game challenges you to make mosaics by matching tiles with different patterns and colors to amass the maximum possible score. One of the best family board games for all tastes, Azul is easy to grasp but supports many tactical approaches and has surprising depth. The beautiful tiles and other components are high quality, and filling your board is deeply satisfying. Play moves quickly, and you can complete a game in less than an hour, but you will probably want to play again immediately. —Simon Hill

Photograph: Simon Hill

Simon notes that this game is more fun than it sounds, which is better be, since it’s mainly about capitalism and expanding companies and executing mergers and acquisitions. It looks lovely and you don’t find out who wins until the end, when you cash out your shares. It was a surprise hit with Simon’s kids.

I know this goes in our gaming deals post, but this is the holiday present that I actually promised my kids. I completely borked our old Switch somehow (this is less of a tragedy than you’d expect, given that I still had the first one from 2017) and we need to replace it so we can continue to have Family Nintendo Night. It’s pretty rare to see Nintendo drop prices on its consoles at all, so you should hop on this one if you, too, are looking.