12 best gifts and toys for six-year-olds that they won’t get bored with

Micro scooters have been part of our family for years now and there’s a good reason. They’re a trusted brand that makes colourful and safe products for children, from toddlers to teens. The Cruiser scooter is a step up from the popular Maxi scooter and slightly more tricky to ride because it’s a two-wheeler. However, it didn’t take my tester long to find his balance and he loved the chopper-style handlebar which made steering the scooter very simple. The LED wheels light up when the scooter moves, which is a fun feature that also makes life less stressful when following speedsters home from school in the dark.

The kickstand makes it easy to park at school or in the park, and the grown-ups found it quick to fold down when putting the scooter in the boot of the car or under the stairs at home. The Cruiser is also quick to assemble once it’s out of the box and adjusting the handlebar height was very straightforward.

If you really want to make your gift special you also have the option of personalising the footplate with the child’s name. The Micro website allows you to choose a font, colour and grip tape design for a £25 charge.

If you’re looking for a small, but perfectly formed gift for a six-year-old car fanatic, these five Formula 1 Hot Wheels are a great choice. The cars are 1:64 in scale and feature some of the most famous teams from the racing circuit, including McLaren.

The boys loved looking closely at the cars to see the details and how well they resembled the real deal. Each car has a metal body and chassis, with authentic team livery and Pirelli branded tyres. Hot Wheels says they’re suitable from age three and they’re a great size for small hands. Our six-year-old testers put the cars through their paces, flinging them across floors to see which was fastest. They’re also excellent toys to pack in your bag if you’re heading off on holiday or need some small toys to keep young kids occupied.

Every six-year-old needs somewhere to store their most precious jewellery and this gorgeous sparkly box from Rockhula is the ideal size for keeping trinkets safe. The box has four compartments, a slip pocket and a dedicated space for earrings and rings. It closes with a popper so the lucky owner will always know everything is safe. One of my mini testers is a real fan of collecting gems and sea glass, so he decided this would make a great safe place for all of his discoveries. We discovered that it’s also a really good size for carrying with you if you want to show it to your friends or put it in your overnight bag.

While this box would make a perfect gift for a six-year-old, it’s a stylish product that older children would also love to receive. I’m sure it will be home for their keepsakes for many more years.

This is a bumper box of fun crafting activities which any fairy and wildlife fan will love. It’s aimed at six to 10-year-olds and includes six different options for children to immerse themselves in a fairytale world. It’s the perfect rainy day activity but also feels much more special and high quality than other crafting kits.

One of my testers is a huge fairy fan and he loved the fact that he could choose from stamps, painting, drawing, collage, scratch art and 3D models. Everything needed for each activity is wrapped separately inside the box, along with a booklet with step-by-step instructions. I loved the fact that I didn’t need to get the PVA glue or glue gun out for any of us, and that I could leave my little tester alone to get on with the kit by himself.

So often craft kits can leave you with creations which just clutter up cupboards and shelves, but I felt like everything we created was actually quite good. The illustrations are beautiful and the materials are sturdy. The price tag is perhaps higher than other crafting sets but I think Djeco has created something here which really raises the bar. Other themes available include flowers, dinosaurs and fluffy animals.

Lego has been a go-to gift for birthdays and Christmas in our family. There’s a set to suit every age, interest and budget. There are so many different themes available now such as Minecraft, Ninjago, Lego friends and more but we’ve always been fans of the Lego city strand. My testers have built boats, helicopters, a burger truck and so many other vehicles over the years.

The police car garage is aimed at age six and over but is one of the more complex sets we’ve had. Over the course of a few days, my testers built the workshop, which even has a turntable for the police car and adding all of the other elements such as the coffee and donut trolley and different helmets for the four minifigures. They loved the fact that you can change the police car’s wheels depending on whether it was on an aerial, road, snow or off-road mission. As always, everything was labelled to make it super easy to build.

This is a menacing-looking remote control car but one that six-year-olds will love. For a start it’s huge, lights up and can make sounds, including growling. Once it was charged, my testers soon discovered that the mega-wrex has three modes: hunt, smasher and guard.

It’s in smasher mode that the massive wheels came into their own and once I saw how powerful the truck was, I’m afraid it was relegated to the garden patio to save my skirting boards. If you prop the car onto its back wheels it can also do some impressive stunts.

This isn’t a cheap gift but it is one which you’ll get hours of fun from – if you can stand the noise and squabbles over the control.

We’re huge fans of Yoto and the wonderful way it brings stories, music and free audio in children’s lives. We have had the original one for a few years but were very interested in the mini version because it looks perfect for using on-the-go, and the colours look so cute.

The mini player has the same features as the bigger Yoto with a slot for the story cards and chunky buttons to turn it on and off, and control the volume. My testers loved taking it to bed with them to listen to with their headphones before going to sleep. It also came out with us for car journeys and tucked into bags for trips.

My testers regularly fell asleep while listening to a story but the Yoto app means parents can control their children’s player by setting time limits or turning off the audio remotely. If you want to jazz up your Yoto Mini you can buy an adventure jacket in orange, blue, yellow, green, purple, grey or silver.

One of my testers is football mad, so this glowing, counting, kick-counting ball seemed like a great toy for him to try out. The reason this differs from regular football is because it beeps and cheers when you do well. While our young tester isn’t quite up to professional levels yet, it didn’t take him long to see improvements in his kick-ups. The upper limit is 100 counts which I’m sure very few six-year-olds can reach, but there was no stopping the adults from having a go too.

The texture of the ball takes a little getting used to, as it’s not leather like normal footballs, but a bit more squishy and slippery. The noises were slightly grating after a while too but the boys loved it.

There are lots of safe and age appropriate beauty products on the market for kids now. This four-pack of vibrant nail varnishes would make a sweet gift for children who want to start experimenting with painting their nails and make-up. The varnish is non-toxic and water-based and easy to scratch off. No Nasties have formulated their products for play, rather than to be long-lasting.

The varnishes are easy to use, with just two to three coats of the pastel pink, bright pink, purple and blue needed. And for parents who are worried about the inevitable spillages, you can be reassured that most can be washed or scratched off.

I’d never seen this game before but before long the kids were addicted. The boys all have a lot of energy and we’re always looking for new games we can play together as a family. Hyper Dash involves players competing to hit five targets called out by colour from an electronic tagger as fast as possible. It’s a real test of speed, skill and agility – and of course there were tears and tantrums.

The game can be played inside or outdoors, but knowing how excitable the testers can be, we stuck to outside only. It was a great game for the whole family, as individuals or a team, and one we kept coming back to because we all wanted to get to the next level and beat our best times. There are 10 levels to complete and 30, 60 or 90 second timers to try.

I’ve found that having a special place to keep secrets or special things starts to become important at age six, and this secret journal meets this criteria. It's an attractive box which needs a special key to unlock it and that’s where the fun begins.

Inside, my tester found small envelopes and locked boxes which he had to find the keys for. Each envelope and box contains small stickers, gems and other little treats. The locks can be quite fiddly to unlock but I found this just built up the excitement and anticipation. The secret journal makes a sweet gift that children will love personalising and filling with other little keepsakes.

If you can’t have any furry pets then Sea Monkeys could be just the thing for a young family. The retro toy is back with a really easy kit to help young children watch these strange creatures hatch and look after. My testers are both fascinated by the ocean and also love an experiment, so they were really intrigued about this toy and what would hatch from the eggs (a type of brine shrimp). The ocean zoo comes with a tank, water purifier, instant live eggs, food and feeding spoon.

With some adult supervision, all the boys needed to do was add water and follow the step-by-step guide, which is made very easy with the three numbered packets and instructions of when to add them to the tank. The downside of this toy is that it’s not 100 per cent guaranteed that the sea monkeys will hatch. We had a decent success rate with the two tanks but there was some disappointment that one of the tanks didn’t have many sea monkeys. But for the price, and the novelty, this would make a really good gift.