21 Best Activity Books for Kids (According to Parents)

Kelly R. said:  These creative activity books for kids are a cool take on the color-by-numbers concept. Each book contains a series of pictures that start out as a simple numbered grid. Fill in the squares with the right colors to reveal the picture!

Tim Ponisciak said:  Beginner activity books are great for kids who are just getting started with drawing or writing letters. Our 5 year old loved his first Kumon tracing book! The pages are easy to understand and this is something your child will be able to do on their own for the most part.

Alexandra F. said:  This colorful, fill-in guided journal is cool for kids to enjoy a little quiet time and self-reflection in a fun and creative way. Kids can answer questions (with words and/or drawings!) about what their favorite and least favorite dinners are, what they would name a shop if they owned one, and how many teeth they have at this moment in time.

Shila said:  Fickle, cavort, mischievous, jealous... widen your vocab and learn a brand new word every single day, with a simple brainstormer to match. We have the Grade 1 book, and today's word of the day was: permit. "You are not permitted to touch the oven." The whole activity really takes only a couple minutes, and it's actually somewhat of a suspenseful moment.

Kelly R. said:  This isn't an activity book that will get tossed away the minute it's completed. Fans of Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid series can create a personalized masterpiece with this cool DIY book. Record fun facts and memories, answer probing questions, complete comic strips, and much more. Your kid (or you, if he lets you peek!) will enjoy flipping through it years later to see his custom haunted house design and the list of dressing room requirements for when he's a famous musician.

Vanessa M. said:  This is Not a Maths Book by Anna Weltman expands the general concept of mathematics into the creative arts. Make parabolic curves into beautiful works of art, make your own 3D art, learn about Pascal's Patterns, create a squaretangle and more in this extraordinary activity book!

Erynn said:  For Minecraft-obsessed elementary schoolers like my son, this Minecraft-centered math activity book is ideal. It's not math disguised as fun, but the activities are engaging and involve puzzle solving, decoding clues and secret messages, and word problem practice with Minecraft themes and concepts. Plus, it spans a few grade levels so there are both familiar and challenging problems.

Kelly R. said:  My son loved this book that is more creativity book than coloring book. Armed with their imaginations, kids complete half-drawn pictures with prompts like "how will you escape from a crocodile" and "what's under the bed?" These books are great gifts for 6-year-old boys, and check out The Girls' Doodle Book if you're shopping for a girl.

Vanessa M. said:  The bright colors and cute characters invite preschoolers to interact with the fun activity pages of the Big Preschool Workbook. Simple directions like "trace the path" or "circle the pictures that begin with a P" are easy to follow, and cover school readiness basics like numbers, colors, shapes, alphabet, basic phonics, early math and more.

Vanessa M. said:  Keep summer learning fun with Scholastic's Summer Express workbooks. Kids will practice vocabulary, grammar, writing, reading, and math skills arranged in a 10-week format that is perfect for summer break. Sticker charts to track progress and award certificates for finished work will keep kids invested in their summer learning.

Vanessa M. said:  Brain Quest is known for educational, fun workbooks and products that kids truly enjoy. The Summer Brain Quest version of the Brain Quest Workbooks series is no exception! Kids' summer learning will be on point with science, social studies, English language arts, and math, plus the foldout summer progress map (with stickers!) encourages kids to meet their learning goals.

Katie G. said:  The Summer Bridge activity books for kids are a great way to keep your child's skills sharp during the long summer months. As the name suggests, the books help to "bridge" the gap from one grade to the next. Kids will be able to refresh material they learned in their current grade and get a jump on material for the next grade. These books are designed to be completed for about 15 minutes a day in subjects such as reading, writing, math, science and even fitness. There are 12 weeks of lesson plans in each book, making this the only learning book you'll need this summer.

Kelly R. said:  If your kids enjoy the hidden picture challenges in the Highlights magazines for kids, this activity book is filled with over 175 of the fun puzzles to keep them busy.

Alexandra F. said:  Phidal has a lot of cool, high quality interactive books to keep younger kids busy, but our family especially loves their sticker book treasuries. My favorite thing about them is that the pages are sturdy and well-laminated, so they are truly reusable and last a long time - in fact, my toddler is using his big sister's book from 10 years ago! Because you can reuse the stickers so easily, kids will have fun creating new stories over and over again, and the books do a nice job providing a variety of stickers and pages with different settings to promote this creativity.

Kelly R. said:  This activity book is fabulous, and of such high quality that it makes an excellent gift! It's also an incredible bang for the buck when I consider the hours and hours that my daughter spent working on it. Kid-favorite Pigeon stars in an interactive story with numerous activities that range from traditional to elaborate (writing and drawing prompts, crafts, puppet shows, paper airplanes, games, and more).

Kelly R. said:  This is such a clever series, where kids have to make decisions, doodle, and manipulate the book in order to stay safe. It feels like a more interactive Choose Your Own Adventure. There are a couple books to choose from...we have the Titanic version, where you need to survive the voyage as a passenger, crew member or stowaway.

Alexandra F. said:  We like to use the Spectrum series of math workbooks in our home both for enrichment and extra math practice. My 9- and 11-year-olds have been using them for a few years, and like that they are heavy on the practice problems and light on the wordy teaching lessons. Concepts are explained in short, easy-to-read introductions, focusing on plenty of exercises (with answers in the back!) to drive the lessons home. We also really like that they offer workbooks for a wide range of levels, so it is easy to just move up as the kids' math skills continue to advance.

Vanessa M. said:  Kids will engage their academic skills and their Jedi mind powers with the LEGO Star Wars Doodle Activity Book. Full of worksheets like matching the Jedi to their description, drawing tutorials, creative art, and a few jokes, this entertaining activity book will keep kids engaged and with a pencil in their hands.

Vanessa M. said:  With Bedtime Math: A Fun Excuse to Stay Up Late and the rest of the Bedtime Math series, Laura Overdeck wants to make math a fun part of family life. Filled with fun math riddles for families to solve together, this type of math work is nothing like what kids are used to at school, yet will keep young brains active and engaged in solving math problems. Each chapter has three levels of challenges for readers of different ages: Wee Ones, Little Kids, and Big Kids.

Kelly R. said:  Travel is an incredible learning opportunity for kids. Whether your destination is Europe or Disney World or Grandma's house, filling out a travel journal is a fun way for kids to observe and appreciate the world around them while creating a fun keepsake to look back on later. This adorable adventure journal from Wee Society is filled with prompts for kids to record the things they experience in a fun way, and even has stickers that kids can earn for certain accomplishments - like trying a new food!

Vanessa M. said:  Keeping kids' brains active doesn't have to mean just reading and math. Pierre the Maze Detective books are an interactive maze meets Where's Waldo? type of experience that will keep kids' minds sharp. Kids will follow the maze until they find Mr. X, solve extra challenges, hunt for clues and hidden objects, and find alternate routes through the mazes.