45 Best Gifts for 8-Year-Old Boys to Keep Them Smiling All Year Long

This funny handbook offers advice on topics ranging from the silly (like how to make fake boogers from rubber cement) to the seriously useful (how to start trying more new foods). Kids will appreciate the fun graphics and illustrations throughout, too. 

Kids will love capturing family and friends with this easy-to-use, instant camera. 

This rock tumbler kit from National Geographic includes everything a young geologist needs to get started including nine types of real rough gemstones ready for polishing. 

This award-winning collection of recipes for young chefs leads kids through dishes with step-by-step instructions and photos. 

This clever invention lets kids keep playing after dark thanks to an LED component that lights the ball from inside. GlowCity makes glow-in-the-dark basketballs, volleyballs, and footballs, too. 

Move your magical character through the every-changing maze to collect your treasures in this popular board game for 2 to 4 players. 

A funny way to learn about and discuss growing bodies with kids, this kit educates with experiments that investigate topics like why feet smell and what actually grows on teeth if you don't brush them.

Young authors can go through the process of writing, illustrating, and publishing their own book with this award-winning kit. 

Kids can create their own world for worms with this classic project that lets young ones observe the animals making tunnels going about life in the dirt. 

With step-by-step instructions, ideas for plots, and set backgrounds, this make-your-own movie kit that leads kids through the finer points of stop animation is perfect for aspiring film makers.

No experience is required to make your move in this well-reviewed version of chess. The unique setup teaches the game via a special card deck, which guides players through the moves various pieces can make. 

This sequel to the best-selling Boys Who Dare to Be Different includes the inspiring real stories of seventy-six more boys and young men that helped make the world a better place and will inspire young readers to do the same. 

Transform a recycled bottle into a powerful, water-pressure  propelled rocket with this DIY kit. 

Mad Libs are still as funny as you remember them, and they now come in a range of themes from history, to animals, to science. 

More than 8,000 reviews praise this board game, "a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities through North America." The game can be played with or without Alexa (Amazon's virtual assistant) who offers setup instructions, sound effects, and music. 

This lunar telescope, from NASA no less, allows young astronomers to see the moon's details up close. 

This beloved journal is filled with prompts to help unleash creative sides and express emotions through art. 

Kids can design their own track—and learn about engineering, gravity, and magnetism along the way—with this marble run starter set.