25 Best Gifts and Toys for 5-Year-Old Girls 2019

Five is such a fun and exciting age. It’s the age when most kids officially stop being preschoolers and look forward to becoming kindergarteners at the big kids’ school. It’s a year of tremendous growth, when learning to read opens up whole new realms of understanding and possibility.

With these changes and opportunities for growth come a lot of awesome gift-giving options. Many of the cool toys you’ve seen in stores or games you’ve wanted to play as a family, perhaps, that once seemed too mature for your child are finally starting to become a possibility for her. It’s exciting! But to make sure you get the most out of your hard-earned money, don’t forget to stop and think a bit first.

OUR HIGHEST RATED AND RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS IN 2019

OUTDOORS TOY	LEARNING TOY	IMAGINATION TOY	CREATIVE TOY

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying a Gift

What are my child’s interests?

Before you go out (or online) and buy a bunch of gifts you think are cool or that you want your child to play with, think long and hard about whether or not she will think they’re cool. There are a lot of toys I wish my daughter was into, but no amount of enthusiasm from me can make her love them. Over the years, her favorite gifts have been the ones that coincide with her greatest interest–art. And while that really isn’t my thing, I always want my daughter to absolutely love the gifts I get her, even if I don’t.

Will she grow out of it too soon?

With all of the changes happening during this year of life, old tastes and interests can often fall by the wayside and be replaced with new ones. You want to avoid buying a toy she’s going to love for a short time and then get over or choosing a game that doesn’t challenge her and will soon become boring. That’s why I try to avoid buying toys based on a favorite TV show or movie character and often buy games that are technically too difficult at first. I want my gifts to have staying power!

How much can I afford?

This feels like an obvious one, but I feel the need to add this extra consideration: Which would be more meaningful to your child–multiple smaller, less expensive gifts or one large, more expensive one? Sometimes, if the present is a big deal kind of item, quality is more important than quantity.

Active/Outdoor Toys for 5-Year-Old Girls

A 5-year-old girl is growing and maturing. She needs ways to exercise her body while having fun with friends. These toys make active play more fun and exciting!

Hover Soccer Ball Set

No more shouting, “Don’t play ball in the house!” With this indoor-friendly hover soccer “ball,” your child can still get her exercise and enjoy a fun, non-destructive game of soccer–no matter what the weather looks like outside. The set comes with two easy-to-assemble 23” x 12.6” x 12.6″ goals and an inflatable soccer ball for additional game options.

The “ball” contains a fan that produces an air cushion, allowing it to hover just off the ground. It easily glides over any smooth surface, including tile, hardwood, concrete, and even low-pile carpet. And best of all, a foam bumper around the edges help protect your furniture, walls, door frames, and baseboards from any damage.

Finally, your child will love the built-in multicolored LED lights that illuminate the ball, and you will love the peace of mind that comes with the three-year warranty and one-year money-back guarantee.

Dreamingbox Compact Shock Proof Binoculars

Encourage your child to get outside and explore with this pair of colorful kids’ binoculars. They are ergonomically designed to fit small hands, and the part around the eyepieces is made from soft rubber so as to fit more comfortably on children’s faces. Kids aren’t exactly gentle with their things, so these binoculars are shockproof, with an extra coating on the eyepieces to protect the lenses when dropped.

With lenses made from Bak-4 prisms with FMC multi-layer broadband green film and coated with multi-layer broadband anti-reflection coating, these binoculars provide your child with an 8x-magnified image that is clear, crisp, and realistic–even at 100 yards away. The binoculars are easy to focus as well as easy to adjust to accommodate children with varying distances between their eyes.

EzyRoller Classic Ride On

This bike/scooter hybrid is a fun ride-on toy that is maneuvered entirely by using the feet, alternately pushing with the right foot and then the left to propel the vehicle forward. Your child can just sit back in the comfortable seat and relax her upper body as she races down hills. Alternatively, she could pick up a ball for a unique take on a variety of sports games.

With no pedals or chains, this ride-on toy is smooth and silent. A small, easily accessible hand break on one of the back wheels makes slowing down or stopping simple and easy. The steel frame can accommodate up to 150 pounds, and the included foot bar extensions can be added to grow with your child. With 11 fun colors to choose from, you can select your child’s favorite for a more personalized look.

WOWMAZING Giant Bubble Wands Kit

The older a child gets, the less she will be entertained by bubbles. Unless they’re giant bubbles, in which case they will never not be cool. This three-piece kit contains a booklet with instructions, tips, and tricks; a container of WOWmazing bubble solution; and a giant, two-handed bubble-making “wand”–everything you need to create huge, impressive bubbles.

The kit is easy to use, even for younger children. It will no doubt provide backyard, park, or beach time fun for the whole family. The wand can be reused, and many reviewers reported bubble-producing success with other bubble brands and even homemade bubble solutions.

little dove Wood Balance Board

This deceptively simple toy boasts a wide variety of uses, including chair, see-saw, table, bridge, and–my personal favorite–slide. It also has endless imaginative play possibilities; it could be a boat, surf board, tunnel, or bed. Your child can make it into whatever she wants!

This toy is also a developmental tool that stimulates the vestibular system, which is the sensory system that alerts our brains to our head position, motion, and orientation in space to aid with balance, stability, and posture. Made from high-quality beech and birch woods, this balance board can support up to 485 pounds and measures 35″ long by 11.8″ wide. Felt on the bottom of the board protects your floors and provides stability for your child.

Hand Operated Drone Helicopter Ball

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a hand-operated drone! And it’s even easy for little people to control–using just their hands. By moving her open hand near the outside edge of the drone, your child can guide it in the opposite direction. To make the drone climb higher, all she has to do is hold her open hand under the center.

Constructed from soft plastic material, the outer casing of the drone is safe for both your child’s hands and your walls and ceiling when used indoors. It is also equipped with infrared motion sensors to help it avoid crashes, should your child be a bit of a crazy driver (er, flier). It is great for indoor or outdoor fun and even has colorful LED lights for an added wow factor. 

The package comes with the drone, a USB charging cable, two rechargeable batteries, a screwdriver, two fans, and a user manual. It also comes with a one-year warranty.

Creative Gifts for 5-Year-Old Girls

Fostering creativity in young girls is very important. It helps to expand their minds and see the world differently. These toys and gifts help girls design their own creations which can be done alone or with a friend.

Creativity for Kids Fashion Headbands Craft Kit

My favorite kid crafts are the ones that result in a useful product when they’re finished. That’s why I love this headband kit. It comes with everything your child needs to create 10 headbands as fun and unique as she is, including ribbons and rhinestones, feathers and flowers, a butterfly, and more.

As your child designs and creates her own headbands, she will be building her fine motor skills. She will also be expressing her creativity. The headbands themselves are made from soft satin and come in a variety of bright colors to match nearly any outfit. If your daughter is a budding fashionista, this is definitely the craft kit for her!

Dover How to Draw

If your child is an aspiring artist, she’ll love this beginner’s drawing book that will teach her to draw 30 different pictures, from animals and plants to food and vehicles. Written by a former elementary school art teacher, this book is at the perfect level for younger children.

Step-by-step instructions teach drawing basics by combining simple shapes into more complex images. As your child practices creating the different pictures, she will learn more about dimension, shape, and form. And when her drawings are complete, she can add even more depth by coloring or painting them.

Drawing can help improve your child’s fine motor skills, concentration, and patience. The book even includes some blank practice pages for her to work on her favorite drawings over and over again until she has perfected them.

OMWay Kids Camera

If your daughter is anything like mine, she loves taking photos of anything and everything. I love seeing the world from her perspective, but I don’t love having hundreds of photos take up room on my phone. That’s why I love this kids’ dual-lens digital camera, which allows your child to take her own 8MP photos and 1080p high-definition videos.

This camera comes with auto-smile and 10-second timer functions, both of which can help your child take high-quality photos. Those photos can remain on the 32 GB SD card or be uploaded and eventually printed using the included USB cord. Your child can also customize her photos with one of the camera’s 32 built-in cartoon frames.

Though the camera comes with a lanyard for hanging it around your child’s neck, it also has a shockproof silicone shell to protect it from damage if it does get dropped. And for some personalization, you can choose from three different color schemes–pink, blue, and camo.

Melissa & Doug Jewelry Box Craft Kit

This is another craft for which the finished product is a useful object–a beautiful jewelry box to hold your child’s treasures. Inside the kit are three glitter glues, white glue, 26 gem stickers, and 38 foil stickers for her to make this wooden box her own.

Within the box are a safety mirror inside the lid and a velvet ring holder, along with two storage compartments. The top compartment is shallow and is divided into three smaller sections. It easily removes from the box to provide access to the larger compartment underneath, where bigger items can be kept safe.

Your daughter will love having a place of her own to keep the treasures she holds dear–whether they be fancy jewelry pieces or just rocks she picks up on her outdoor explorations. And it’s even better that she will have decorated the special container herself!

Mom and Me Cookbook

Cooking is a valuable skill for all children to learn, and they can start the process at a very young age. In fact, it is when they are young that most kids show an interest in helping their parents cook. To foster that interest, try getting your child this cookbook written especially for kids who are cooking with adult help.

Unlike many of the other kids’ cookbooks out there, which are filled with recipes for foods most kids wouldn’t eat, this one shows kids how to make their favorite foods–scrambled eggs, spaghetti, pizza, cupcakes, cookies, and more. The recipes themselves are explained in simple language with step-by-step instructions, each of which has a corresponding illustrative photograph to go with it.

In addition to the recipes, the book also introduces basic cooking terms, techniques, tools, and measurements to help your child become more comfortable and confident in the kitchen. Who knows? Maybe you can start to pawn dinner duty off on her!

Crayola Scribble Scrubbie Pets

If you’re anti-pet like our family (and even if you already have an indifferent cat or playful puppy at home), your child will love playing with these pretend pets. In addition to four cute animals–Francesca the poodle, Peach the cat, Clyde the bunny, and Scooter the labrador–and six washable markers she can use to color them, this set also comes with a bathtub and scrub brush to clean them off with when she’s done. They can be colored and washed over and over again for never-ending fun

The markers that come with the set are washable and non-toxic. They come in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The pets themselves are made from a soft, fuzzy material that makes them seem more like real animals. If your child wants more pets to color and wash off, there are several expansion packs you can buy.

Kids Bath Bombs Set with Surprise Toys Inside

It feels like bath bombs are all the rage these days. I see and hear about them everywhere! While there are many bath bomb kits for kids out there, a lot of them result in a poor-quality finished product. And where is the fun in making something that doesn’t even work?

The draw of a bath bomb is the fun fizzy action that results from them being submerged in water, and these bombs are definitely fizzy and fun. They even have “bath sprinkles” that make the water sparkly. There are six different scents in each package: bubble gum, cotton candy, dreamsicle, galaxy, grape soda, and gummy bear. And best of all, each one contains a surprise toy that is revealed after the bomb has fizzed.

While these bath bombs turn your kid’s bath water a light color, they do not stain your tub or leave an oil ring behind. Made from safe, all-natural ingredients, they will leave your child’s skin hydrated and moisturized.

STEM/Learning Gifts for 5-Year-Old Girls

Who says STEM is just for boys? Girls love learning about science, technology, engineering, and math through play. These toys help expand girls’ thinking and better understand how and why things work the way they do.

National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Why

I’m pretty sure every kid goes through a “Why?” stage. We may not always have the answer every time they ask us that, but this book does! From “Why do I have a belly button?” to “Why does the wind blow?”, this informative book answers many of the questions your child has asked–and probably many she hasn’t thought to yet.

This book is divided into four different sections: Amazing Me, How Things Work, Animals All Around, and Wonders of the World. Each page poses a question at the beginning and then answers it on a level kids can comprehend in simple, easy-to-understand language. The format and content of the book encourage curiosity and exploration, making learning fun.

BEST LEARNING My First Piano Book

Learning to play the piano is a great introduction to the world of music, and this book is a great introduction to the piano. With a miniature piano built into its back cover, this book is as interactive as it is portable. Each of its keys is numbered and color-coded to correspond to the colored numbers that appear under each note in the different songs. That way kids can play without needing to know how to read music.

The book includes 10 fun, familiar children’s songs, including “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” and more. The piano is tuned to the same pitch as a real piano but can also sound like five other instruments–accordion, flute, guitar, harp, and saxophone. In addition to the 20 piano keys that span one and a half octaves, there are 10 buttons that play the different songs so your child can hear them and play along.

Like a real piano, your child can play and hear more than one note at a time. Unlike a real piano, however, she can record her songs and play them back to hear her progress. As she plays and listens to her own songs, she will learn more about music as well as develop her motor skills, logical thinking, and ability to focus.

Osmo Coding Jam

My husband, a high school physics and engineering teacher, tells me all the time that coding is becoming a necessary skill for the rising generation. And because kids absorb so much, it’s best to teach them while they’re young! Coding toys are becoming very popular, but not all are created equal. This version from Osmo is a perfect combination of educational and fun. In addition to basic coding, it teaches about music, rhythm, and pattern recognition.

As with all Osmo games, you must first buy the base that is compatible with your device, be it an iPad or Fire tablet. The base detects the action happening in front of it and provides instant feedback. For the Coding Jam game, your child will connect 23 blocks, each with different commands, in different ways to create musical beats. Each unique combination of blocks will create a unique song.

There are varying levels of difficulty for your child to conquer as she gets better and better at it, and you can track her progress on the parents’ app. You don’t need WiFi to play the game, so your child can even play this game on the go.

CakCity Waterproof Analog Time Teacher

This gift idea is both a learning device and an accessory. Its polyurethane strap boasts a cute flower design, and its colorful, easy-to-read watch face helps children learn to tell time on an analog clock. A slightly raised dial around the face provides the numbers 5, 10, 15, and so on to help with the tricky job of figuring out how many minutes it is past the hour.

This watch is made using quartz movement, so the time it tells is precise and accurate. The strap is soft and the whole watch is very lightweight, providing a comfortable fit for sensitive little wrists. It comes in six color choices and is waterproof enough to be worn in the shower.

Shifu Plugo Count

Like Osmo, Shifu creates technologically based STEM learning games that involve using a device such as an iPad, Android, or Fire tablet. For the Plugocount game, your child can play four games with more than 250 progressive levels of story-based math challenges designed for kids ages five to ten years old. Simply download the free app and select your child’s grade level to begin.

The kit comes with a foldable game pad, a counting spike, two sets of tiles with the numbers 0 through 9 on them, four tiles with arithmetic operators (+, -, x, and /) on them, and a guide with step-by-step play instructions. With no cords to connect everything and get in the way, setup is easy and fast. The game pad and counting spike communicate with each other via embedded magnets.

In addition to teaching and reinforcing math skills, this game hones your child’s logical reasoning and critical thinking skills. She will sharpen her visual, auditory, and tactile senses as she works on word problems, timed trials, and basic arithmetic.

LEGO Disney Aurora, Ariel, and Tiana’s Royal Celebration Kit

LEGOs are a great STEM toy for young girls. They help teach skills such as following directions, improving dexterity, and planning. LEGOs can also be a creative toy, as kits can be put together in various ways and can be played with using imagination.

This set is new for 2019 and is perfect for your 5-year-old young lady. With 282 pieces as well as three minifigures (Aurora, Ariel, Tiana) plus figures of a dolphin, a frog, and a squirrel, this set is sure to keep your little one busy and entertained. The build includes Aurora’s Tower, Tiana’s Restaurant, and Ariel’s carriage (which is pulled by the dolphin).

Girls can enjoy playing with this building set either alone or with a friend. This LEGO set for girls can be combined with other sets and the pieces can be used interchangeably.

Wipe Clean: Early Learning Activity Book

If you’re looking for something to help your 5-year-old sit quietly and entertain herself, this is the book for you! It helps kids work on their handwriting and pen control with four different focuses: letters, animals, time, and numbers. The time and numbers sections also help teach counting and basic time telling.

In the letters section, your child can trace both uppercase and lowercase letters before practicing them on her own. The letters are also shown within words–at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end–which can help kids with the phonetics of each letter to prepare them for reading.

This book is primarily responsible for my daughter being able to write her letters and numbers. We’ve had it for a couple of years now, and she still loves using it. As a warning, the marker that comes with the book isn’t great, so you may want to invest in a few others in various colors for the hours of quiet, educational entertainment your child will find in this book.

Games/Imaginative Play

Your girl is still in that magical window of imagination and exploration. Pretending is an important way for kids to be creative and engage their minds. Playing games promotes several skills including reasoning, logic, math, and pre-reading skills.

Little Live Pets – Sparkles My Dancing Unicorn

This little pet unicorn is cute and interactive. Plus she has awesome dance moves! Stroking her neck makes her horn glow red and inspires her to nuzzle you. Petting her back inspires her to then start trotting. A third caress of the heart on her side will get her dancing to her own music.

Like all unicorns, I assume, Sparkles loves to eat cupcakes. When she does, she makes cute eating sounds and her horn glows green. In addition to a delicious cupcake, this package comes with a brush to keep her mane soft and beautiful.

SparkleKitty

Our family learned about SparkleKitty from my husband’s niece, and I’m so glad we did! It’s a cute, simple, silly game that is fun for the whole family. The premise behind the game is that the evil queen SparkleKitty has trapped a group of powerful princesses in “no cursing” towers, where they are unable to perform their magic spells to set themselves free. It is thus up to the game players to utter spells for them. The first person to free his or her princess wins.

To play, each player selects a princess, who stands at the top of a four-card tower. The object is to be the first player to remove all four of the cards and thereby set the princess free. In the center of the table is the spell book, onto which players place cards from their hands–each of which has a word on it–and read the resulting spell. When all of the cards are gone from their hands, players can remove a card from the tower before drawing more.

The word combinations that get read throughout the game are funny and often result in giggling. And best of all, kids learn sight words as they play!

Spot It!

My preschool girl loves playing Spot It!, and we haven’t even played the complete game with her yet. This two- to eight-player game consists of 55 round cards, each of which is filled with a selection of 50 different symbols. Any two cards will have one and only one pair of matching symbols. The basic objective is to spot the match between the two cards before anyone else.

When we play with our daughter, we simply lay out two cards and see who can spot the match first. Whoever does gets to take the cards, and the person with the most pairs at the end wins. While this is great for her at this stage, the game instructions include five different games to play with the cards–all of which require, at their core, finding matching symbols between two cards. In each of the five sub-versions of the game, every player is playing at the same time, so there’s no boring wait time between turns.

As your child plays this game, she will hone her observational and visual skills as well as develop a greater capacity to focus. And with so many playing possibilities, this game can grow with your child to provide years of family fun.

GIGGLE N GO Magnetic Dart Board Game

Darts are a classic game that never goes out of style, and this particular version is perfect for young kids just learning how to play. The double-sided board has a standard game board on one side and an easier, kid-friendly version on the other side. Your child can choose either a monster theme, a space theme, or a unicorn theme, depending on her preferences.

The darts for the board are magnetic, because you obviously don’t want to give any child a sharp object and tell him or her to throw it. The darts’ neodymium magnets stick very well to the board but are still easy to remove, and each package comes with two sets of them.

In addition to improving your child’s coordination, strength, focus, and other motor skills, this game has the added bonus of providing basic adding skills. And for your benefit, it comes with a one-year warranty.

Melissa & Doug Dust! Sweep! Mop! Pretend Play Set

For some reason, my daughter loves dusting. She often decides, on her own, to dust the house for me. She thinks it’s fun! I still haven’t figured out why, with so many fun toys to play with, kids like to play pretend by copying what adults do, no matter how boring it is. Whatever the reason, this dusting, sweeping, and mopping set is very popular among young kids.

The duster, broom, mop, handheld brush, and dustpan in this set all have hanging ropes for easy storage on the included upright stand. The dustpan even snaps on to all of the handles, just like the real thing. And, with the exception of the mop, all the pieces can be used to do real cleaning. So now you can put your kid to work!

Seriously though, these toys can be used for pretend play (if you can call cleaning “play”), or they can be used to teach your child responsibility and the satisfaction of completing a task with a visible results. For many kids, the joy of helping Mommy and Daddy is fun enough! Now if only kids maintained that attitude through the terrible teen years…