Age appropriate toys / books for advanced child?

Hi Kristina. My wife and I, a doctor and an engineer, aren't dummies. But our 9-year-old son is far smarter than we were. He does algebra, wins spelling bees, and is bugging me for calculus lessons. He read the last, biggest Harry Potter in 2 days when he was 7.

Books: The Harry Potter series. There are some scarey parts and some light romance going on between the characters. The Redwall Series isn't quite as well-crafted, but there are a lot them, 15 or so and at 400 pages each, that saved us for a month. Anything by Mark Twain (Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Tom Swayer, etc) or C.S. Lewis (Alice in Wonderland, Chronicles of Narnia) have many layers to them - a story, an adventure, literature, history, social commentary, etc - that the child will get more out of them every few years when they re-read them. Individual books that were hits include "The Dangerous Book for Boys". And "1000 Play Thinks" by Ivan Moscovich. Giant Book of Mensa Mind Challanges.

I don't fret too much about sexuality or adult situations being portrayed because pre-teens will either 1) blip right over it without noticing or 2) ask their parents what's up and that creates a very teachable moment. My wife read Gone with the Wind many times as a pre-teen and totally missed the sexually charged aspects of it.

In games, I'd look to the classics that have kept generations of creative kids occupied long after the novelty wore off: Legos, Monopoly, Scrabble, Boggle, chess*. More recent ones that are good and multi-generational are Blockus (kind of between Tetras and Go), Set (a 100-card game which makes you think but kids and adults are very well matched, and Swipe (a dice and chips short game). Set and Swipe are particularly compact for traveling or shipping.

*If chess is a possibility, drop me a note and I'll detail what to get and where to get it. Toystores have lousy plastic sets. There are good, cheap options from chess-centric on-line vendors.

For a smart kid, I cube their age for the number of puzzle pieces (age 6: 6x6x6 is about 200 pieces. age 9 = 750-1000 pieces). Ravensburger and "Melissa & Doug" are two high quality brands. Most others are crap. With those two, you can just pick an interesting picture with the right number of pieces and know the fit and finish is good.

Gift Certificates to their local bookstore are a good fall back.

Well, I really loved Where the red fern grows, (my favorite) I'm older than him, but it's not a bad book, it has two "curse words" in it, but it's just because of the time it was supposed to be written in.

There is also, The green glass sea, which I'm still reading, and so far, I really love it.

Goosebumps books are always fun, my fav is One day at Horrorland.

This book, has nothing bad in it at all, it's heartwarming and really fun to read, it's called Every Soul a Star, I really recommend it, it was awesome!

Lastly, Bridge to Terabithia, made my me cry, but it was a really good book, Where the red fern grow made me cry though too, okay maybe almost all the books I've read have made me cry, I'm a softy! XD

I really recommend Every Soul A Star and Goosebumps, because they are very age appropriate, and I love em'!

http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toys_by_ages/boys... Here are some toys also, they have to deal with science, I kinda wish I had some of them! XD

We have a child who is the same way.

Just because the academic peformance is ahead of the norm, doesn't mean that the desired activity type is. Get the age-recommended stuff.

(We learned this the hard way.)

You can also never loose with art or craft supplies, legos, or other things that are self-adjusting for ability level.