The 5 Christmas Gifts Grandchildren Were Still Playing With in February
Most of what goes under the tree is in a bin by New Year's. These five were not, and the one that won costs under $30.
Want a present that is still being used after the tree has gone out?
Buying for a grandchild whose parents have already said no more plastic?
Need to know the last safe day to order so it is under the tree?
If you nodded at any of those, this is the list. Christmas is the one time a year a grandparent gets to pick without asking, and I love that. I also see what happens to most of those picks, because in January they either come back to my classroom in a backpack or they are never mentioned again.
Everything below was still out on the floor or the table in February. First, the four I would leave on the shelf.
Four Christmas presents I would leave on the shelf
Most presents are in the trash by February, and the price had nothing to do with it. There was nothing in them to get better at.
- $40 of plastic that lights up. It wins Christmas morning and loses January. By the time school starts back it is under the bed with a wheel missing.
- A $150 tablet, or a learning app on the old one. The app teaches letters on glass. School asks for letters on paper with a pencil, and those are two different skills. Parents find that out in February.
- A $4 activity book from the dollar store. Thin paper, oversized letters, dotted lines too faint to follow. Four dollars of coloring dressed up as practice.
- $50 in a card. It turns into groceries by the second week of January. Nothing wrong with groceries. It is just not a present anybody remembers.
The five below all survived to February in a real house with real children.
What grandparents usually buy, and where it is in January
| The gift | What it costs | Where it is in January | What the child kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| A kids' tablet, or one more learning app | $150 and up | In the parents' drawer with a cracked corner | Letters on glass, none on paper |
| A big plastic toy that lights up | $40 to $60 | In the bin, battery cover missing | Nothing |
| A dollar-store workbook | $4 | Filled in and thrown away | A fist grip |
| Cash in a card | $50 | Groceries | No memory of it |
| The Groovd Magic Copybooks | $29.90 | On the kitchen table with a pencil in it | A pencil grip, and letters that are hers |
How I picked these: Every January for the last six years I have written down, in the first week back, every present a child in my class talked about and every one that showed up in a backpack. That list is where this guide starts. Then I put each of the five gifts below in front of my own class for a month: 25 children, ages four to six, ten minutes a day where it fit, and I kept a note of who reached for it without being asked. Three things decided the order. The child can work it alone. It fits the year the child is actually in. And it was still out on the table in February.
The winner: the Groovd Magic Copybooks. Under the tree it is a box with four books, a pen and a grip trainer. By February it is on the kitchen table with a pencil in it.
- Four books: alphabet, numbers, math, drawing
- Letters grooved into the page, the pencil follows the groove
- Ink fades in about 10 minutes, every page reusable
- B6 size, about a paperback, fits a bag
- 1 magic pen and 6 ink refills included
- Pencil grip trainer included
- Gift box, nothing to charge, no batteries
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- The ink fades, so a page she is proud of will not survive the afternoon. But that is what makes it magic to her.
- Four books only. Cursive is sold separately, and it is the one she will ask for next.
- The train lays the dominoes in a line by itself
- 60 dominoes in the standard pack, 120 and 180 available
- Sound and lights, battery powered
- Works on any hard floor or big table
- Ages 4 to 8
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- It is loud. That is either the best part or the catch, depending on the grandparent.
- The dominoes are small. Keep a toddler sibling off the floor while it runs.
- Magnets in every block, snaps together without help
- Sets of 48, 80, 128 and 192 pieces, all compatible
- Builds walls, houses and towers, Minecraft style
- Ages 4 to 8, older siblings join in
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- 48 pieces is the starter size. Most families come back for the 80.
- They live on the living-room floor. That is where the building happens.
- 15 activities on one board: zips, buckles, laces, buttons, a clock
- 7 themes: life skills, alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors, animals, weather
- Folds flat, fits a diaper bag
- Nothing to switch on
- Ages 2 to 4
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- Outgrown around five, which is the point. By then they can dress themselves.
- The buckles need one show-and-tell from an adult. After that they are on their own.
- Pick the child's age, 2 to 9, and the crate is packed for it
- One crate every other month
- Pause or cancel from the account page any time
- Reviews go back three years
- 60-day money-back guarantee
- It is a subscription. The child will expect the next box, so plan on at least three.
- Order early for a birthday. The first crate takes a cycle to arrive.
I did not expect a workbook to survive Christmas morning
Last Christmas my granddaughter, three and three-quarters at the time, opened a light-up unicorn, a doll's kitchen and a set of four books in a plain box. I know which one I expected to be forgotten by the time the turkey came out. It was the box.
By New Year's the unicorn was under the bed. The kitchen was in the garage. The alphabet book was on the kitchen table with a pencil in it, and it still is.
The groove does the correcting. The ink does the rest.
The letters are cut into the page as grooves. The pencil drops in and follows the shape, so the letter cannot come out wrong, and the child feels the right movement in the hand instead of hearing about it from an adult. Nobody hovers. Nobody says hold it like this.
The ink fades in about ten minutes. She writes a page, has a snack, and it is blank again. One set of four books lasts the year for that reason, and it is why the reviews keep saying the same sentence: she asked for one more page.
There is a grip trainer in the box, a small rubber piece that sits on the pen and puts the fingers where they go. That is the part that changes the handwriting, and it is the part a $4 workbook does not have.
What was still on the table in January
The copybooks were the one present in my class that came back in a backpack every single January I kept the list. The children bring them in to show me. The parents tell me the grip changed. I can see it in the pencil marks on the first worksheet of the year.
My granddaughter's set has pencil marks on the box now and the alphabet book has been through the ink about forty times. She writes her name on birthday cards. Her mother did not teach her that, and neither did I. The groove did.
The other four, and who they are for
Groovd DominoFun Train Set
This is the Christmas-morning present. A train that lays its own dominoes, sound and lights, a run across the living-room floor before the wrapping paper is picked up.
If you want one gift that the grandparents, the parents and the child all play with on the day, this is it.
Groovd Magnetic Building Blocks
If you want the wow on Christmas morning without a screen, this is it. The blocks click together in a way that feels like magic to a five-year-old, and the first tower happens before breakfast.
Get the 80-piece set if two grandchildren will be building at once.
Groovd Montessori Activity Board
A two-year-old cannot do much with most of the presents under a tree. This one they can.
It is also the gift that goes home in the parents' bag and comes out at every restaurant until spring, so it gets used more than anything bigger.
The Groovd Learning Box
One present on Christmas morning is over by lunch. This one arrives again in February, and April, and June. For a grandparent who wants to stay in the picture all year, it beats one big box.
Order it early. The first crate takes a cycle to arrive, so a December order is a January box, which is exactly when the tree comes down.
Before you order
- Every gift here ships with a 60-day money-back guarantee. If the child does not take to it, email the store and you get the money back.
- The copybooks arrive in a gift box, ready to give.
- Prices are what each gift cost on September 21, 2026.
If you only buy one
The copybooks. In a box, ready to go under the tree, at $29.90, 75% off the list price. Sixty days to change your mind.
Check discount availability →Click here to lock in the 75% off sale price before it ends →What people who bought the copybooks say
Before you take my word for it, here is the check I would do myself: the Trustpilot page. Reviews there are hard for a company to game. Trustpilot verifies reviewers, flags suspicious patterns and publicly penalizes companies caught tidying up their own score. Groovd's page sits at 4.6 out of 5. The reviews below are from the store itself, grandparents first.
Rated 4.6 / 5 on Trustpilot. Showing recent reviews from the store.
Read through enough of them and the same things keep coming up. The grip changes, usually inside a month. The child asks for the pen back. And because the ink fades, the same four books are still in use months later, which is the thing nobody expects from a workbook.
See more reviews at Trustpilot →
Rated 4.6 on Trustpilot
UP TO 75% OFF FOR A LIMITED TIME
With a 60-day money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose.
Try it risk-free →Ships in a gift box | 60-day guarantee
Try it today. Sixty days to change your mind.
Check with the parents before you order. One text about what is already on the list saves a double.
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