Stock Up on Coloring, Puzzle, and Activity Books for Kids
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With summer’s right around the corner, it’s a good time to stock up on coloring, puzzle, and activity books for your kids. These are great for lazy days at home or on the go travel days.
See what you think about these cool, newly published options for both boys and girls, ages 5 to teen.
Coloring, Puzzle, and Activity Books for Kids
The Amazing EMOJI Puzzle Book (ages 6 – 10)
Who doesn’t love Emojis? In this activity puzzle book, kids get to use all their favorite emojis to solve puzzles and brain teasers with the 200 Emoji stickers. This book is great for practicing logical thinking and problem-solving.
Colossal Creature Count: Add Up All of the Animals to Solve Each Scene by Daniel Limon (ages 5+)
More than just a search and find book, kids must also use math skills — both adding and algebra. Algebra because you get the total of animals so if your numbers don’t add up, you’ll have to figure out how many are missing. Isn’t this so cool? I’m impressed with the way Colossal Creatures makes learning so fun.
A-Maze-Ing Animals 50 Mazes for Kids by Joe Wos (ages 8 – 12)
I saw this book on a tweet and fell in love with it! Each of the mazes is a design of the animals in 5 difficulty levels. From bats hanging in a cave to colorful underwater creatures, these mazes will develop visual-spatial skills in a totally fun, engaging way. And I’m pretty positive that once you get started, you won’t want to stop.
Awesome Women Who Changed History PAPER DOLLS illustrated by Carol Del Angel (ages 6+)
Use the Awesome Women book to teach your kids about influential women throughout history and today. Of course it’s great for play, yes, but also this book will inspire research and discussion. (Or art — these could be framed in some sort of homage to favorite women or something like that.)
Animal Babies: Cool & Calm Coloring for Kids (ages 8+)
My daughters totally dig the super cute and happy images to color in this coloring book. My 15-year old has already done at least a third of the coloring pages. Color therapy for teens? Who knew!
Added to: Best Coloring Books for Kids
Fairies To Color Cool & Calm Coloring for Kids (ages 8+)
From the same company as Animal Babies, comes another coloring book of total cuteness, this time with fairies. The pages are detachable making color and displaying (or gifting) an easy option.
Rosie Revere’s Big Project Book for Bold Engineers 40+ Things to Invent, Draw, and Make by Andrea Beaty, illustrated by David Roberts ages (ages 5 – 10)
This is an excellent, engaging activity book based on the fantastic STEM Rosie Revere, Engineer picture book. Colorful illustrations and a cool layout will entice readers to try, fail, and learn. Discover more about simple machines, build a marble run, solve engineering challenges, design a stuffed animal carrier for your bike, learn about inventors who failed a lot, and so much more.
Added to: Best Activity Books for Kids Ages 9 – 12
Adventures in the Garden: A Coloring Book of Beautiful Blooms for Exploring, Creating, and Having Fun by Patricia Zapata (ages 6 – 12)
With larger spaces to color, this is a sweet coloring book for elementary aged children who love the natural world. Perforated pages and sweet inspirational phrases for each coloring double page spread.
Added to: Best Coloring Books for Kids
Dominion of Giants Coloring Book Behemoths of the Fantasy World by Eric Messinger (ages 12+)
You might think coloring books are only for girls but that is not true. This particular book is a sure-fire hit with fantasy-loving boys and girls — Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons fans, in particular. Cool quotes from favorite authors plus color palette suggestions pair with amazing illustrations of mages, giants, dwarfs, and more. The artistry is absolutely incredible in this book. These images invite creative coloring — probably displaying afterward. You’ll like that the sturdy, perforated pages, too. I’m so excited to get coloring in this book myself.
Added to: Best Coloring Books for Kids
The Doodle Book of Feel Good: A Doodle/Coloring Book for All Ages by Charise Mericle Harper (ages 10+)
Pure fun and inspiration great you on every page in this coloring book. Each design has a saying like these: happy is the best flavor, you can say no thank you, and hooray day. Love these!
Ultimate Dot-to-Dot Minecraft: 40 Incredible Puzzles with up to 1,000 Dots by Dr. Gareth Moore (ages 12+)
My kids and I haven’t attempted these challenging dot-to-dots yet but whoa — these will give us a run for our money! Thankfully, the dots are color coded so you can find each group of hundreds by color. A perfect puzzle book for Minecraft fans.
