Got a budding meteorologist on your holiday shopping list? Toy Insider’s Chief Toy Officer Laurie Schacht stopped by The Weather Channel to show off some cool weather, climate, and science toys. For more on the items featured in this segment, check out the product notes below, and for the complete rundown of the best toys of the holiday season, be sure to check our complete Toy Insider Holiday Gift Guide.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLORER TORNADO MAKER (ALEX)
- Create this destructive force of nature in your own home!
- The Tornado Maker kit lets kids build their own spinning twisters.
- Get a peek into the eye of the storm with the Bird’s Eye View.
- Create different types of tornadoes by combining different objects and liquids and adjusting wind velocity in the storm stimulator.
- The kit comes with a tornado maker, a storm cloud lid, 1 model tractor, model pig, 1 model cow, and a 29-page manual with fun facts and instructions.
- Ages: 6+
- MSRP: $29.99
- Available: Amazon, Kohl’s
DISCOVERY KIDS EXTREME WEATHER (HORIZON)
- Combine fun and learning to create four climate-changing experiments with this Discovery Kids Extreme Weather Kit.
- Set up time is 10 minutes. The contents of this kit enable your children get to create artificial snow, a solar oven, a tornado Vortex, and an erupting volcano.
- Ages: 12+
- MSRP: $19.99
- Available: Amazon
SENSORS ALIVE (THAMES & KOSMOS)
- Kids use the three sensors in this game to measure light (watts), sound (decibels), and temperature (degrees).
- As kids take measurements in the world around them, the data is transferred to the Sensors Alive app where the measurements create a virtual world and creatures to live in it.
- Create, collect, play with, and care for your creatures in the app while learning about the physics behind light, sound, and heat.
- Sensors Alive works with a tablet or smartphone operating on recent versions of iOS and Android.
- Ages: 8+
- MSRP: $149.95
- Available: Amazon
THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUT WEATHER LAB (THE YOUNG SCIENTISTS CLUB)
- Join Ms. Frizzle and her students as they explore the weather. Young Scientists learn about weather by spinning a pinwheel, making a tornado in a bottle, recreating the water cycle, constructing a barometer, and more
- The bus-shaped weather station includes a thermometer, rain gauge, wind meter, wind vane, compass, and 28 experiment cards.
- Kids can also track the weather on the enclosed weather chart with stickers.
- Ages: 5+
- MSRP: $39.99
- Available: Amazon
MY FIRST COLORFORMS: MISS WEATHER SET (KAHOOTZ)
- Build colorful themed scenes with Miss Weather, mixing and matching more than the Colorforms pieces and re-sticking the shapes to imagine your own stories over and over again!
- Give Miss Weather different outfits for all sorts of weather!
- Large stickers and bright colors are made for small hands
- Ages: 3+
- MSRP: $9.99
- Available: Amazon, Target
PLUI RAIN CLOUD AND PLUII II BLUE (MOLUK)
- Pluï is a bath toy that playfully teaches children some basic physical principles.
- Immerse it in water to fill up and then let it rain.The magic lies in the way you can stop the rain simply by closing the hole on top with a finger.
- Pluï gently introduces babies and toddlers to water while stimulating their imagination and senses.
- Easily comes apart for cleaning and drying.
- Ages: 2+
- MSRP: $14
- Available: Amazon, Walmart
CRA-Z-SNOW (CRA-Z-ART)
- Just add water to the Cra-Z-Snow to create a powder that looks and feels like real snow!
- One tub makes over 1.5 gallons of snow
- Also can be used in slime making!
- Ages: 4+
- MSRP: $9.99
- Available: Walmart, Target
