Christian Gifts for Kids

Books, puzzles, and simple gifts that encourage Scripture, imagination, and a love for Christ.

There is something especially sweet about choosing a gift for a child.

We want to see their eyes brighten when the paper comes away. We want to give them something beautiful, something they will return to, something that becomes part of the small world of childhood.

But for Christian parents, grandparents, and friends, there is often another hope beneath the giving.

We want the things we place into a child’s hands to be good for them.

Not every gift needs to become a lesson. Childhood should have plenty of room for delight, imagination, laughter, building, wandering, and play. Yet some gifts can quietly serve the deeper work already taking place in a Christian home. A book can give a mother another occasion to speak about Christ. A puzzle can make a familiar Bible story tangible to little hands. A hymn heard again and again can become part of a child’s memory before he is old enough to understand everything he is singing.

No book, toy, or activity can give a child faith. Only God can give a new heart.

But good gifts can serve faithful parents as they teach their children the Scriptures, speak of Christ, and fill the ordinary hours of home with things that are true and lovely.

Here are a few of our favorite kinds of Christian gifts for children ages two through ten.

1. Scripture-Rich Storybooks

Children return to stories.

Long after a toy has disappeared beneath the bed, a well-loved book may still be remembered—the pictures, the familiar sentences, the voice of a mother or father reading from the chair beside them.

That makes books one of the loveliest gifts we can give a child.

Look for books that treat Scripture faithfully rather than merely turning Bible characters into moral examples. David is more than a lesson in bravery. Noah is more than a story about animals. Esther is more than an example of courage.

These stories belong to the one great history of redemption, in which God keeps His promises and ultimately brings salvation through Christ.

For younger children, we especially love books with beautiful illustrations, clear language, and enough simplicity that a child wants to hear them again.

A few to consider: Little Bible Books from Elstow Press; The Big Picture Story Bible from Crossway; and, for children ready for a longer story, a beautifully illustrated edition of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

The best children’s books do not merely occupy an afternoon.

They become companions.

2. Bible Coloring Books and Creative Activities

Children often take in a story more deeply when they are given time to sit with it.

Coloring can create that kind of quiet space.

A child may hear the story of David and Goliath, Ruth and Boaz, Daniel in the lions’ den, or Moses before Pharaoh—and then spend another twenty minutes looking carefully at the scene while coloring it.

That slower attention matters.

It gives parents another opportunity to talk about what happened, what the passage teaches about God, and how each story fits within the larger story of Scripture.

A good Bible coloring book should do more than place a verse beside a generic picture. Look for illustrations that are thoughtful, beautiful, and faithful to the biblical account.

Our forthcoming The Bible Coloring Book from Elstow Press was created with this in mind: large storybook-style illustrations, familiar stories from across Scripture, and enough room for children to color slowly and enjoy the details.

Other simple creative gifts can work beautifully as well—good colored pencils, Scripture copywork pages, watercolor sets, or a notebook for drawing scenes from Bible stories.

These kinds of gifts give children something many of us could use more of ourselves: time to slow down, look carefully, and remember.

3. Scripture Memory Cards

There are few treasures we can help children carry into adulthood quite like the words of Scripture.

A child may understand only part of a verse at five years old and discover, many years later, that the words are still there.

“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
Psalm 119:11, KJV

Memory cards can make Scripture memorization feel wonderfully ordinary.

Place one beside the breakfast table. Keep another near the homeschool books. Read it aloud once or twice during the day. Explain one unfamiliar word. Say a phrase together.

There does not need to be pressure to memorize quickly.

The purpose is familiarity with the Word.

4. Art, Copywork, and Quiet Creative Gifts

Older children often enjoy having something of their own to write in.

A beautiful notebook, Scripture copywork book, Bible coloring book, or set of good pencils can create a quiet place for attention.

Copying a Psalm by hand forces us to move more slowly than reading it with our eyes. Coloring a biblical scene gives a child time to linger over the details of a story. A notebook can become a place for prayers, copied verses, questions, drawings, and things for which a child is thankful.

These activities should not become busywork disguised as discipleship.

Their value is simpler than that.

They help children slow down.

And in a hurried world, learning to attend carefully to good things is itself a gift.

5. Toys That Leave Room for Imagination

Christian toys do not need a Bible verse printed across them to be worthwhile.

A shepherd and a few wooden sheep can become David’s pasture one afternoon and the shepherds outside Bethlehem the next.

A little wooden boat may become Noah’s ark, the disciples crossing Galilee, or simply a boat sailing toward some imaginary shore.

Children often need fewer instructions than we think.

Give them good materials and enough room to imagine.

Wooden Bible figures, felt story sets, lambs, shepherds, simple nativity pieces, and other open-ended toys can live naturally alongside ordinary childhood play without feeling forced or overly instructional.

There is something fitting about that.

The Christian faith is not meant to be confined to a separate religious corner of life. Christ is Lord over the whole home—including the hours spent building, pretending, drawing, and playing on the floor.

6. Music Worth Carrying into Adulthood

Children have an astonishing capacity for remembering songs.

A melody heard often enough can remain for decades.

That makes music one of the richest gifts Christian families can place into a child’s life.

Scripture songs are particularly useful because children often memorize whole passages almost without realizing they are doing so. Collections such as Seeds Family Worship and Slugs & Bugs: Sing the Bible put biblical words into melodies children can sing around the house or in the car.

But do not overlook the old hymns.

Teach them Jesus Loves Me, certainly—but also Holy, Holy, Holy, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Come Thou Fount, All Creatures of Our God and King, and the hymns your family loves.

A child may not understand every line today.

Understanding often catches up with memory later.

7. Gifts for Family Worship

Sometimes the best Christian gift for a child is really a gift for the whole household.

A good family Bible.

A hymnal.

A short catechism.

An Advent book brought out every December.

A candle placed on the table before evening Scripture reading.

None of these things is magical. Family worship does not become faithful because the table is beautiful or because the materials match.

What matters is much simpler: the Word of God is opened, Christ is spoken of, prayers are offered, and parents faithfully bring their children before the Lord.

Still, beautiful and useful things can help establish rhythms.

A child may someday remember the old Bible his father opened after supper, the hymnbook his mother held, or the candle that was always lit during Advent.

Objects become precious because of what happened around them.

Give What Can Be Loved and Used

Perhaps that is the simplest principle for choosing Christian gifts for children.

Do not give merely because something has been labeled “Christian.”

Give what is true.

Give what is beautiful.

Give what invites a child to return.

A book that will actually be read.

A puzzle a father will sit on the floor and build with his son.

A verse card beside a little girl’s bed.

A hymnal that gathers a family around the piano.

The gift itself is not the great thing.

The greater thing is often what happens around it: the story read for the twentieth time, the conversation that follows, the question unexpectedly asked, the verse repeated together, the child climbing into a parent’s lap and saying, “Read it again.”

Those are ordinary moments.

But so much of Christian childhood is formed there.

Give with joy. Give with wisdom. And wherever you can, give something that makes it a little easier to speak of Christ in the ordinary life of home.