The Parent's Guide to Fifth Grade

Flip Video Camcorder

Have a budding movie-maker on your hands, but not sure you're ready to shell out big bucks for a camera? This camcorder is an affordable option and it's so easy to use, even a fifth grader can shoot video whenever the spirit moves him. There's no fancy footwork required here-- to record kids simply press the big red button. Although the camera doesn't cost a fortune, it comes equipped with zoom, playback, a small LCD display, a decent microphone, and software that makes editing, emailing, or uploading to YouTube a snap. Plus, it's so small, kids can stick it in a pocket and pull it out at a moment's notice. Ready, set, action! (Pure Digital, $149.00)

Celestial Seeker: The Ultimate Star Finder

If you've ever tried to locate the constellations with your child on a pitch black night, fumbling with the guide book and a flashlight, you'll appreciate this great toolkit for stargazers. The Celestial Seeker is a handheld device illuminating twenty constellation transparencies with night vision preserving red light. Each constellation card has a legend to indicate what months this constellation can be seen and when it will be at its highest point in the sky. The toy includes four star charts showing cool stuff to find in the night sky in each season. This user-friendly toy puts all the excitement of astronomy into the palm of your child's hand. (Edmund Scientific, $19.95)

Gobblet!

Our six-year-old product tester loved it, our nine-year-old product tester loved it, and then many of our elementary-aged product testers were up in arms because they couldn't pry the game away from the grown-ups. The beauty of this game is that it can be relatively easy to play and win, or, bump up the age of the two players and it can be a brutal cage-match of strategy, logic, and deception. Each player starts with three sets of small nesting wooden columns and the game is played on a wooden board that looks like a pared-down version of checkers. The goal is simple: make a row of four in your color before your opponent does. But be careful, your smaller pieces can be "gobbled" at any time by your opponent's larger pieces, and you can also get into big trouble forgetting which of your big pieces have eaten up your opponent's little guys. Sound easy? It is. Sound confusing? It can be. Sound incredibly fun, challenging, and engaging? You betcha. (Blue Orange Games, $29.95)

The Hidden Grail: Sir Percival and the Fisher King

It's unlikely that your kids have ever listened to a bard in action. Enter Odds Bodkin, a world-renowned storyteller equipped with harp and 12-string guitar. This CD, based on the King Arthur legends, is the story of a sheltered boy who grows up in the woods, with only his mother for company. When he happens upon a group of knights one day in the forest, he determines to become one himself. His naivety in the face of intense danger in a new world in which he does not know the rules, forms the backbone of this story. Bodkin weaves this tale as a beautiful sound scape , with his harp and guitar forming the score below his dozens of voices. Listening to him move from character to character as he seamlessly improvises his way through the tale, will build your child's vocabulary, literacy, and interest in medieval times. But more than that, it will show him what an imagination fully unleashed looks like. Your kids will secretly wish for traffic on the way home, just so they can listen a few minutes longer. (Rivertree Productions, $16.98)

Cirque du Soleil

Hopefully, your child has been receiving a good helping of the arts at school, along with his reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. More and more, though, it falls to parents to fill in the gaps. Fifth grade is a prime year to wow your child with a live performance, and Cirque du Soleil could be just the ticket. The company has been turning circus on its head since the 1980s, when they were a small group of Canadian buskers barely making rent. Now they've got over 3,000 employees from over 40 countries, entertaining audiences across the globe. Take your kid to a performance and you'll understand why. From contortion to clowning, acrobatics to aerial rings, this strange mix of simple street performance and no-holds-barred spectacular is a sight to behold. Tickets aren't cheap, but this is an experience with live performance that could inspire a creative soul for years to come.

Bananagrams

If Scrabble's point system and competitiveness gets your little wordsmith down, this funky anagram game is the perfect alternative. Simple and portable, all you need is a flat surface and this set of ceramic tiles which comes in a banana-shaped canvas case. Players take tiles from the "bunch" which are laid face down on the table. Then, each person works on her own individual crossword, rearranging the letters to form as many words as possible. When a player uses up all her tiles, she shouts "PEEL" and takes another from the bunch. All players must also peel at the same time, so rather than competing, everyone is using up the tiles from the collective bunch. When all the letters are gone, the first player with no letters left wins the game. This game promotes vocabulary and spelling skills in a flexible, relaxing environment. (Bananagrams, $17.99)

The Marvelous and Fabulous Me Quiz Book

Is your daughter a perfectionist? A peacemaker? An introvert? This kit will help her find out. A fun take on the ever-popular personality test, which kids of this age group tend to love, this box packs in more than fifty quizzes to give girls insight into what makes them tick. Some of the quizzes, like the trimmed down version of the Myers-Briggs test, are based on the stuff kids might find at the school counselor's office. Other "tests" weigh color preferences, favorite books, friends and enemies, and other less tangible inclinations. There's also some information on the anagram , and a hopped up tarot deck for good measure. In an age full of products that push girls to grow up way too fast, it's refreshing to see a kit that encourages girls to resist cookie-cutter conformity, and celebrate what makes them unique. When they're finished, they can pack up their answers in the keepsake box and create a little time capsule for a few years down the road, when they won't remember anymore what it was like to be 10 or 11. (Workman, $15.95)

Blokus

Deceptively simple in appearance, Blokus is an addictive game of strategy and spatial reasoning. Resembling a 3-D game of Tetris, the playing board is a simple grid onto which players fit differently shaped tiles as they spread their pieces towards the center of the board. The catch? Each of your pieces must touch another only at the corner, and if your way is blocked by another person's piece, you'll have to find another spot to lay down your tile. You really have to play to believe that something so simple can be so appealing to players both young and old, but the trick lies in the fact that although the rules are easy enough, there's no limit to how much strategy you can put into the game. For game players of all ages, Blokus is the perfect fit. (Educational Insights, 2 to 4 players, $29.99)

Beginner's Origami: Birds, Beasts, Bugs, and Butterflies

by Steve and Megumi Biddle

For a fusion of art, math, and pure manual dexterity, it's hard to match Origami. With proper adult guidance, even very small children can make simple shapes. But older kids can still learn a great deal by practicing this ancient art, especially as they move into the increasingly abstract math concepts of fifth and sixth grade measurement, proportion, and geometry. This is also an excellent time for kids to work independently with a manual, learning to read the text and follow its directions. We especially like Steve and Megumi Biddle's clean-lined, easy to follow book. Their animal creations, ranging from cicada to polar bear, are each accompanied by a photograph of a piece of related art from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, helping young artists see the ties between their original works and those of classic artists. This handy manual even comes with a set of origami paper, so kids--and interested parents--can start folding right away. (Viking, 17.99)

Fractiles — 7

Symmetry is a beautiful thing, and it's also a great lesson in geometry. That's what makes this magnetic tiling toy such a must-have. This refreshing set of manipulatives includes 96 magnetic tiles in yellow, red and blue, and a steel magnetic activity board. The tiles three shapes are types of diamonds, and their angles represent six different fractions of 360 degrees. Fractiles works on spatial relationships, visual perceptual skills, creativity and fine motor skills. Instructions are given for several puzzles and games, plus an explanation of different kinds of symmetry. But, even if the mathematics is too advanced for your fifth grader, she'll enjoy using her hands and her imagination to create an endless stream of shapes and patterns, like starbursts, spirals, and butterflies. (Fractiles, $27.45)

Heifer International

If you're looking for a dynamic and educational alternative to buying more stuff this holiday season, you may want to consider donating an animal in your child's name through this organization. Heifer International provides 27 different types of livestock to impoverished families in 48 countries, including the United States. Each gift has a domino effect on a community, because the first recipient of an animal from Heifer agrees to give one of the animal's offspring to a neighbor, and train that neighbor in how to take care of it. So, put one of Heifer's gift catalogs under the tree this year and ask your child to pick out which animal they'd like to send. Tell them they won't just be donating to charity, they'll be helping people learn to produce their own food and become self-sufficient. That's a lesson in social studies, global consciousness and ethics your child won't soon forget. The catalog can be ordered at www.heifer.org, or by calling 1-800-696-1918. (Prices range from $500 for a heifer, to $20 for a gaggle of geese. And shares of animals can be purchased at $10 a pop.)

Speed Stacks

What, a wildly popular activity that kids are addicted to that's not a video game? That's right. It's called "sport stacking". And it involves "up stacking" and "down stacking" 12 specially designed cups into pyramid formations as fast as possible. There are international competitions aired on television, record-setting champions featured in the Guinness Book of World Records, and about 11,000 schools that have incorporated sport stacking into their Physical Education curriculum. Proponents of the activity say it increases reaction time, concentration, hand-eye coordination and ambidexterity--skills which can translate into more traditional sports, like baseball, or playing a musical instrument, like the piano. Others say the magic lies in its ability to empower kids who aren't natural athletes. But, whether you call it a sport, or glorified dish washing, one thing's for sure: it'll get kids off the couch. Vancouver 2010, anyone? (Play Along, $29.99)

River Crossing

A hiker wants to cross a scary river. Kids put down logs he can step on so he doesn't get chomped by gators. No problem, right? Wrong! This marvelous game of logic and spatial relations consists of a magnetized guy, a bunch of toy planks and tree stumps, and 40 "challenge cards" from Beginner to Expert level. From an educational standpoint, we give this toy top marks: it directly addresses the problem-solving, spatial relations, and logic skills that run through math and science curriculum in every elementary and middle school grade. Plus, it can take as little as five minutes to play, so it's a great way to take a quick break in the middle of a homework session. (ThinkFun, 1 or more players, $15.99)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

by E.L. Konigsburg

In this children's classic, 12-year-old Claudia Kincaid decides to teach her parents a lesson by running away from home. After researching the matter thoroughly, she settles on the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the perfect hideaway, and drags her little brother Jamie along for the ride. What follows is an absorbing tale of their life within museum walls, as they blend in with tour groups by day, fish coins out of the fountain for lunch money, and sleep on Marie Antoinette's four-poster bed by night. Young readers will relish the street-smart Kincaids' ingenious approaches to outwitting adults, and the Met itself has much to teach, as well as a mystery to be solved. In the end, the Kincaid children learn a big lesson of their own. This smart and unique story has endured for a reason: its blend of adventure, mystery, antiquity, and kid-power make it a must for every young reader's shelf. (Aladdin, $9.99)

Princess Academy

by Shannon Hale

Miri may live within the walls of a kingdom, but she's anything but royal. Her family barely ekes out a living by working the local quarry-- hard and dangerous work. Then one day, news arrives of a prophesy stating the kingdom's new princess will come from her tiny village. All eligible girls are forced to leave for a new academy, to prepare for the prince's arrival. Full of rich details and strong female characters, this is the story of girls fighting to figure out who they are, in the face of incredible adversity. It also highlights the importance of something most kids of this age take for granted... the right to a decent education and the power of literacy. (Bloomsbury, $7.95)

The Dark is Rising

by Susan Cooper

This fantasy series melds adventure, magic, and myth in an epic battle between the powers of Light and Dark. Before there was Harry Potter, there was Will Stanton, the seventh son of a seventh son who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he is one of the Old Ones, dedicated to battling the powers of evil. This series strikes the perfect balance between everyday characters and a world of ancient magic, humor and danger, and successfully incorporates aspects of British folklore and Arthurian legend into a contemporary context. Perfect for fifth-graders whose concepts of good and evil, childhood and maturity are becoming more complex, The Dark is Rising series is an enduring classic. (Aladdin, Boxed Set $29.99)

Prang Brush Pens

Reminiscent of the supple brushes of Japanese calligraphers, these colorful art pens make perfect stocking stuffers for kids, whether or not they're artistically inclined. The smooth brush-like pen tips allow kids to vary their pen strokes from thin to fat by applying different amounts of pressure to the page, and the possibilities for illustration, decoration, and calligraphy are endless. Pair the original brush pens with the metallic brush pen pack, and you have the perfect palette for endless artistic experimentation. (Dixon, $5.79)