Best Advent Calendars for Gritty Kids

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Those resilient, inquisitive kids are pretty darn great, but they can be hard to shop for! Here is a list of Advent Calendars that will keep your gritty kid engaged as they count down to Christmas!

I’ve never heard the term “Gritty Kid” until I came across the “Logic Workbook for Gritty Kids” series of puzzle and riddle books. My son absolutely fell in love with these. He finished two of them while on a 13-hour flight to Europe when he was 7 years old. I highly recommend this series! It is engaging and fun, and doesn’t require any screens or technology—just a pen or pencil!

We love these erasable pens for our child! Makes him feel like a grown-up, but they erase any mistakes and trial-and-error. We also invested in refillable mechanical pencils. These are so good, and you can refill the lead and the eraser, too!

Okay, now on to the Advent Calendars…

Best Advent Calendars for Gritty Kids

In no particular order…

KiwiCo Advent Calendars

These are probably our favorite Advent Calendars. We have been KiwiCo customers since 2019, when our son was about 2 years old, and we have loved seeing him grow from Panda Crate to Tinker Crate. These have been fun for Oliver and for us as a family to sit and build together.

The KiwiCo Advent Calendars include either 12 or 24 numbered envelopes with pieces to build an entire set. Some of the sets are trains, a village, and ornaments.

What’s great about these is that you can take them out every year for the Holidays and use them as decor. Having something hand-made adds meaning and sparks memories during the Holidays!

LEGO City Advent Calendar

There are various LEGO Advent Calendars, but the CITY one is definitely the favorite (and is almost sold out everywhere— get it FAST).

Each one of the 24 doors features a little build or a minifigure. The CITY version of the calendar has a Holiday theme throughout. Examples of builds from past calendars include a fireplace, an ice sculpture, and a small pile of gifts. The minifigures include Mrs. Claus, Santa, a hockey player, and a kid in a winter sweater with a chocolate chip cookie, and even LEGO kittens and puppies.

Each doors are numbered 1 to 24. They are perforated so a child can open them easily. The back of the “door” contains instructions for putting together the mini build (or minifig). The pieces are all in a tiny plastic bag inside. Get your brick on!

Meri Meri Heirloom Quality Advent Calendars

If you know Meri Meri, you know luxury Holiday decor, party supplies, and timeless toys. They have cemented their reputation as a minimalist and classic party supply shop.

Meri Meri Advent Calendars are beautiful and packaged exquisitely. Perfect for gifting!

Meri Meri offers a variety of Advent Calendar wooden and paper puzzles, including decorative scenes like a train set, a theater stage, and an elf village. They are also known for their charm bracelet and necklace Advent Calendars, where you get the gold-toned chain on the first day, and each subsequent day gives you a charm to add. The final product is something that can be enjoyed for years to come, as holiday decor or jewelry. Additionally, the completed Advent Calendar is filled with memories of the family building it together.

Mystery Advent Calendars: Clue

The Clue Advent Calendar is fun for the entire family! If you are into mysteries and family game nights, this calendar will be a huge hit. Our 8-year-old has discovered the Clue board game, making game nights even more fun. He is at that age when we can actually play challenging card and board games. Not just Uno all the time (nothing wrong with Uno)!

Included are 24 days of clues, tools to solve the mystery, and rewards to lead you to find out “Whodunit”. Once opened, the interior of the box is structured like a Clue board, complete with a map of the manor.

Fat Brain Toys: The Hey Clay Advent Calendar

A dear friend from the beautiful town of Ojai, California, introduced our then 5-year-old son to Hey Clay.

When our son was about 4 or 5, we found out, while his Pre-K class was reading and making Oobleck, that he had an aversion to slime, Play-Doh, and traditional clay. But he loved to be creative and make art with everything he could find. Finding an air-dry clay that was safe for kids and also didn’t feel icky on Oliver’s hands was a joy.

The Hey Clay brand Advent Calendar is a lot of fun, mainly because the creations are, let’s say, a bit unconventional, not quite resembling the ones in the book, which can lead to a lot of laughter and silliness.

A sculpting tool is behind the 1st door, so you can make (or try to make) the daily figurines. The figurines come with a hook and string, allowing the creations to be hung on a Christmas tree or used as decor anywhere else. The clay dries within 24 hours. Each door features a QR code that, when scanned, takes you to a video tutorial on how to sculpt the item behind the door.

If you are very serious about your clay sculptures, this may not be the right choice for you. However, if you’re looking for a family-friendly, fun, and silly activity, then give this a try.

Builder Advent Calendars by EIGHT

EIGHT is a British company that makes electronic model advent calendars and building kids. They have a few builder Advent Calendars, including electronic circuit-based games, a retro radio, and a retro robot.

The Electronic Games Advent Calendar is basically a circuit board that your child can build upon with daily pieces to make simple “games”. What makes this more fun is that each day is a new game, so you don’t have to wait to make something work. The first day reveals the circuit board, wires, and battery pack (batteries not included), marking the beginning of the journey. So, make sure you have AA batteries ready for the first day of the countdown!

Each day, a small electronic component will be revealed, such as a sensor, transistor, resistor, LED lights, and more. The games are simple representations of classics such as Whack a Mole, Ping Pong, Simon Says, and more.

These work in straightforward ways, for example, Simon Says works by the “computer” lighting one of the LED lights – there will be different colors that you or your child will assemble, and the player has to press a button on the board that corresponds to the LED light lit by the “computer”. The speed of the game increases just like the classic Simon Says game from years ago! Simple yet quite rewarding for your budding engineer.

The other two EIGHT Brand Advent Calendars, the Retro Radio and Retro Robot, I do not have personal experience with. Still, they may be worth trying, given how great the Circuit Board Games Advent Calendar is.