As a self proclaimed expert on 10-year-old girls (having a 10-year-old half-sister, a 10-year-old step-sister, and a 10-year-old daughter) I’ve made it my mission to search, dig and construct a golden gift guide of twelve wonderful and age appropriate gift ideas for 10-year-girls. However, I did leave one major thing off the list: the pony. A pony is just a given, so feel free to give your girl one despite its omission.
The List
To ensure a well-balanced girl, the list includes both feminine and educational treasures and reads as follows:
1. Akeela and the Bee (DVD, Amazon.com $19.99) Eleven year-old Akeela Anderson is faced with many challenges at home: her father is dead, her mother ignores her and her brother runs with a very bad crowd. She’s a smart girl, but her environment dampens her aspirations. Akeela participates in a spelling bee to avoid detention for her many absences, and to her surprise (and embarrassment) she wins. Her principal asks her to seek coaching from English professor, Dr. Larabee, for the more prestigious regional bee. She wants her community to be proud of her but can she overcome her insecurities and distracting home life? Can she get past Dr. Larabee’s baggage and the endless faces of more experienced and privileged fellow spellers?
2. American Girl “Just Like You” Doll (By Mattel – www.americangirl.com Starter Doll with outfit, book, and CD $87) Choose one of 25 dolls that stand 18 inches with various combinations of skin tones and hair and eye colors. If you want, you can purchase a gift certificate from the website so that your girl can choose her own doll and “build her personality” herself.
3. American Girl Magazine Subscription (www.americangirl.com $22.95 for six issues) This well trusted magazine helps your girl celebrate those too short “tween” years (from 9-11). According to their website, this magazine is full of party plans, projects, crafts, quizzes, games and girl-to-girl advice. She’ll love getting her own magazine in the mail, and will probably be thinking of you with every new issue she receives.
4. Disney GPS Mobile Phone (Disney Mobile $109.99 after $90 rebate, two year contract required) Parents can better monitor and control their 10-year-olds with Disney Mobile’s GPS LG phone. This service is targeted at 10 to 15 years-olds and with this new phone, parents are able to establish monthly spending limits for voice, text messaging and ring tone downloads. Parents also have the ability to establish times of the day and days of the week the phone can be used while the GPS tracking will give them the ability to see where their children are at all times. It’s a two-in-one – not only a gift for the girl, but for the parent as well.
5. Discovery Remote Control Moon In My Room (Discovery Channel Store $29.95) You can establish her lunar bond early by bringing the beauty of the moon right into her bedroom with this remote control two pound plastic model. This fascinating model features a built-in light sensor that illuminates the moon when it gets dark; rotates through 12 lunar phases; has detailed lunar landscape and easily mounts to the wall with three different hanging angles. It also includes an audio CD with a guided tour of the moon and detailed instruction, but not the four AA and two AAA batteries required. So don’t forget to get them too!
6. Discovery Sew Fun Kit (Discovery Channel Store $39.95) She’ll be able to become her own fashion designer (at least for her dolls) with this four pound sewing machine. This portable and lightweight machine features a working foot pedal, two speeds that allow for safe and easy introduction and a presser foot designed to keep little hands safe. For her convenience, it also includes two machine needles; two yards of fabric; felt; a pincushion; scissors; buttons; a carrying case for storage and so much more.
7. Adventure Workshop 7th Edition: 4th – 6th grade Software (Best Buy $19.99) With this Windows based software, your girl can solve the mystery of the missing amulet while boosting her reading skills in Clue Finders Reading. The Number Heroes in Mighty Math Numbers Heroes will have plenty of adventures to teach her in math metropolis. She’ll experience historical time-travel adventures where she will track Carmen and her band of thieves in Carmen Sandiego: Great Chase Through Time. Also, your girl will help find Velma’s missing Egyptologist cousin with Scooby and the gang in Scooby-Doo Jinx at the Sphinx.
8. ATM Bank (Discovery Channel Store $39.95) This Automated Teller Machine is the winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award. Teach your 10-year-old how to become financially savvy like her parents (we hope) with this four pound ATM. It accepts real US bills and coins and actually dispenses cash like a real ATM. Your girl can enter her secret PIN number for access and make deposits and withdrawals while it keeps a running total of her savings (safe from little brothers and sisters). The two AA batteries that are required are not included.
9. Discovery Biosphere Terrarium (Discovery Channel Store $39.95) It is a winner of the Parents’ Choice Gold Award and is an enclosed landscape offering a safe place to observe plants, animals and insects. It includes realistic rock and landscape formations with a built in lagoon; a digital readout that displays the temperature and humidity inside the dome and a “rainmaker.” It also includes a bug cup and tweezers; a magnifying window for a close-up look (even underwater) and a two-month manufacturer’s warranty.
10. Discovery Bug Listener (Discovery Channel Store $14.95) Bugs are not just for boys! This one pound self enclosed “sound studio” allows your girl to hear what bugs sound like when they walk and “talk.” It includes a sensitive, built-in microphone that amplifies the smallest sounds; a magnifying lens that lets her observe bugs close-up and earbud headphones. There is also a removable lid that attaches securely for adding and removing bugs. It requires two AAA batteries that are not included.
11. Talking Odyssey III Interactive Globe (Toysplususa.com $99.99) This interactive globe is a winner of the Educational Source Top 10 Toy of the Year award. Your girl can learn thousands of fascinating world facts and according to one mother, Patricia from Everett, Washington, your girl will also be able to impress her teachers. The Odyssey III identifies continent name, population, land area and highest point; compares populations and land areas between locations; plays national anthems and popular songs and tells current time and day of the week for all 24 time zones. It even has six built-in geography games for 1-4 players. It requires four C batteries that are not included.
12. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate Dicamillo, illustrated by Timothy B. Ering (Amazon.com $12.99) This Newbery Medal Book Award winner according to Miriam Lang Budin of Chappaqua Public Library in New York, is an expanded fairy tale that is “entertaining, heartening, and above all, great fun.” Dicamillo intertwines four story lines of human and rodent society in an old fashioned and somewhat dark story that begins “within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse.” There are no batteries with this – just old fashioned good reading.
The Confession
After showing this list to my daughter, she became incensed with the fact that I created such a great list for this article and she owned none of it. My poor short-sited jewel does not yet realize that her mommy had been doing her Christmas shopping homework to her benefit. There is no doubt that this list will light up your 10-year-old girl’s face just as it will mine. Your agonizing is over. Happy shopping!
