The growing awareness of the value among parents wanting to develop and inspire their child’s interests is not only driving more companies to develop educational products but pushing sales.

According to a report by Global Market Insights the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) toy market is projected to reach $13 billion by 2032.

Among the toymakers meeting the demand is Assaf Eshet, CEO and founder of Clixo , a flexible, origami-inspired magnetic system that was recently named one of Time magazine’s Best Inventions of 2025. As an industrial designer who has worked for some of the top names in the toy industry, Eshet said his mission has always been to create toys that inspire exploration rather than dictate outcomes.

“Kids should have a real appetite for curiosity,” said Eshet. “Our job as parents, teachers and toymakers is to strike that nerve of wonder and keep it alive.”

That’s what Playmobil did for him as a child.

“I used to assemble them and then reassemble them to make them my own,” Eshet said during a phone interview from New York City.

Now children are taking his kits, assembling them as they are and then reimagining them to be something else.

“Things that we can’t even imagine they are already creating,” said Eshet, who launched the brand in 2020 with a few kits and has expanded it to include 20 kits ranging from $15 to $200. New this year for aspiring paleontologists is Dinosaur Adventure (6-up, $49.99).

“It’s an amazing set,” Eshet said, of the newest addition to the Clixo family featuring 36 pieces that can be used to make a variety of dinosaurs or whatever creature comes to mind.

“You can mix and match them, too,” said Eshet, whose Clixo brand is also in the running for the Toy Foundation’s Best Creativity Toy of the Year.

The company also earned the Best Creative Fun Award by Tillywig and was named to Toy Insider’s Top Holiday Toys list in 2023.

Clixo is a new favorite but the launch of STEM toys happened around the same time as the space race and the inauguration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958.

“The scientific achievements of the next three decades from the moon landing, artificial heart, personal computing and cell phones all yielded a call for enhanced science education,” according to a report from Forbes. “The call was answered by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which established guidelines for the teaching of science, math, engineering and technology in grades K-12, introducing the acronym SMET. However, educators and policymakers found the term awkward and unappealing, evensuggesting it sounded like ‘smut’. So in 2001, the NSF officially rebranded the initiative STEM and more recently STEAM, as ‘Art’ was added.”

“A lot of parents are buying STEAM toys that have educational value and those toys become treasures,” said Julie Everitt, co-owner of Whistle Stop Hobby and Toy in St. Clair Shores, which has been in the business of selling toys for more than 50 years. Everitt said there are a number of cool new STEAM toys out this year including Rail Cube by Sanko Toys (3-up, $99.99-$199.99).

“The set comes with magnetic tubes that you connect to create a little monorail for a little engine,” Everitt said. “It’s a super cute set and it really goes.”

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Another favorite at Whistle Stop is Hape’s Lock and Learn Playboard (3-6, $34.99), a wooden busy board featuring little exercises that teach kids meaningful tasks like how to unlock a latch or turn on a light. Among the STEAM toys growing in popularity among older kids is Rolife’s miniature kits ($49.99). Tweens and teens, even adults can build everything from little houses and book nooks to tiny greenhouses.

“Most of them are for ages 14 and up but we do carry some for 8-plus,” Everitt said, sharing but a few of the STEAM toys making this year’s hot list.

More toys

Looking for a few more toys. Check out our kids’ review of this year’s lineup of STEAM toys along with many others that are expected to make Santa’s Wish List inside the Homefront section and on our website.

Educators reflect on the season’s hottest toys

Johanna Le Pape, French-born award-winning pastry chef who lives in Southern California, has written a cookbook that revolutionizes the art of baking. Her book, “Patisserie Revolution” (Robert Rose), explores healthier baking, discussing 30 types of flours, and 17 types of sugars. She also includes substitution guides for a lowering glycemic index, as well as vegan substitutes for milk, yogurts, creams and fats.

I spoke with Le Pape from her home in Venice. She told me that about 10 years ago she realized the future of pastry would require it to be healthier. She set about to find ways to create pastries using healthier ingredients.

Her book’s long list of alternatives to wheat flour fascinated me. In all my years of baking, I never employed most of these options. I knew about almond flour and chickpea flour, but I’d never sought out chestnut flour, or coconut flour, or myriad others.

She explained that the flour needs to be a complete grain, not refined. She advised combining 2 or 3 different wheat-flour alternates to build flavor and incorporate different nutrients; diversification can make for better digestion.

To follow is her recipe for Energy Balls, tasty little snacks that I tucked away in my freezer. I had all the ingredients on hand except the chestnut flour and the unsweetened desiccated coconut, items that I sought out online. I made my spheres about 1 inch in diameter; Chef Le Pape prefers to make them half that big.

Queried about which recipes were her favorites, she said that the Healthy Snickers Bars go to the top of the list, adding that her 3- and 4-year-old daughters frequently ask for them.

Patisserie Revolution Energy Balls

Yield: About 15

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons dried banana slices

1/2 teaspoon flax seeds

7 tablespoons chopped pitted dates

2/3 cup chestnut flour

6 tablespoons whole almonds

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons dried apricots

3 1/2 tablespoons dried cranberries

1/4 cup plus 4 teaspoons unsweetened desiccated coconut

DIRECTIONS

1. In a food processor, combine dried banana slices, flax seeds, dates, chestnut flour, almonds, apricots, cranberries, and coconut; pulse until chopped. Form into bite-sized balls.

2. Store in a sealed container at room temperature for one week or freeze for up to one month.

Source: “Patisserie Revolution” by Johanna Le Pape (Robert Rose)

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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By Céline Gounder, KFF Health News

Rates of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are surging in Texas, Florida, California, Oregon, and other states and localities across the country.

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The outbreaks are fueled by falling vaccination rates, fading immunity, and delays in public health tracking systems, according to interviews with state and federal health officials. Babies too young to be fully vaccinated are most at risk.

“Pertussis cases increase in a cyclical fashion driven by waning immunity, but the size of the outbreak and the potential for severe outcomes in children who cannot be vaccinated can be mitigated by high coverage and good communication to folks at risk,” said Demetre Daskalakis, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization program, who resigned in August.

Before the first pertussis vaccine became available in the early 1900s, whooping cough was one of the most common childhood diseases and a major cause of childhood death in the United States. Today, children get a series of DTaP shots (full-dose version) starting at 2 months old, and teens and adults receive a Tdap booster (lower-dose version) every 10 years. (Both vaccines target diphtheria and tetanus in addition to pertussis.)

Until recently, 8 in 10 toddlers had received four doses of the DTaP vaccine by age 2, and case rates were controlled. But vaccine coverage has declined since the covid pandemic and increases in state nonmedical exemptions have widened immunity gaps, which is when the proportion of individuals who are immune falls below the level needed to contain spread.

Texas logged 1,928 pertussis cases in 2024. By October 2025, the state had exceeded 3,500. National numbers are just as stark: In the first three months of 2025, the U.S. tallied 6,600 cases — four times last year’s pace and 25 times 2023’s. Several states are posting their highest case totals in a decade, and outbreaks from Louisiana to South Dakota to Idaho make clear this surge isn’t regional. It’s everywhere.

Key factors behind these numbers

Texas lawmakers recently passed a law that made it easier for parents to claim nonmedical exemptions from school vaccine requirements by allowing them to download exemption forms online. These forms now go straight to schools, not health departments, making the exemptions harder to track.

Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Phil Huang said the full impact of the new exemption rule is not yet known because it began this school year, but he expects it will make school-level vaccination rates fall even more.

He’s already noted a dramatic drop in vaccinations. Normally, during back-to-school season, “our whole front downstairs area is packed,” he said. “We did not see that this year.”

Huang believes fear of immigration enforcement may be keeping at least some families, especially Hispanic families, from getting vaccinated. Dallas County is about 40% Hispanic. “We think that a lot of them are deterred by the ICE activity,” he said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More complications: These vaccines protect against severe disease, but protection against infection fades over time, as is the case with the covid and influenza vaccines.

The U.S. switched in the 1990s from whole-cell pertussis vaccines to “acellular” ones, which cause fewer side effects but do not last as long. Because more adults today than in the past received the acellular vaccine as children, many have lost immunity over time and may unknowingly pass the infection to babies.

Babies face the greatest risk

Whooping cough is especially dangerous for infants under a year old. Some stop breathing during coughing fits. Many need hospital care, about 1 in 5 of whom develop pneumonia, and about 1% of whom die.

Because of this high risk, the CDC urges pregnant women to get a Tdap vaccine during every pregnancy. This allows the mother’s antibodies to pass to the baby before birth.

Health officials once promoted “cocooning,” vaccinating all family members and caregivers around the baby, but that strategy was hard to carry out in real life and is no longer widely recommended. Vaccination of pregnant women and babies at 2 months of age remains the strongest protection.

Better testing finds more cases

Modern PCR testing is also uncovering more pertussis cases than in the past. Many clinics now routinely use this lab-based technology to test for several respiratory infections at once, including pertussis. Ten years ago, these panels were uncommon.

CDC experts say this explains part of the rise in case counts. But the large number of infant hospitalizations and the size of state outbreaks show that true transmission has also increased.

A growing worry: antibiotic resistance

Doctors normally treat pertussis with macrolide antibiotics, such as erythromycin, azithromycin, and clarithromycin. These drugs work best early in the illness and help stop spread. Another drug, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, is an option for some older infants and adults.

But macrolide-resistant pertussis has become common abroad, especially in China, and recent reports show resistance rising in Peru. In the U.S., resistant cases have been rare.

CDC officials warn that resistant strains could spread more easily through international travel. Because treatment options are limited, especially for very young infants, health workers are watching this closely.

Huang said macrolide resistance has not been seen yet in Dallas County. But he is aware of the national concern.

What happens now

The resurgence of whooping cough has no single cause. Instead, several problems are occurring at once: falling vaccine coverage, only about 60% of pregnant women receiving Tdap, waning immunity, improved testing, and early signs of antibiotic resistance.

Health experts say solutions must match the problem’s complexity.

Across the nation, clinicians are being told to have a higher suspicion for pertussis when they see patients, especially children or caregivers of newborns with a persistent cough or coughing fits followed by vomiting. Babies who stop breathing or turn blue need immediate care.

Obstetricians are encouraged to discuss Tdap during every pregnancy. Pediatricians and family doctors are urged to check booster status for teens and adults.

Several states have issued health advisories over the past two years, including Texas, which has issued alerts in both 2024 and 2025 urging clinicians to stay vigilant.

Huang said Dallas County is trying to rebuild public health outreach programs that were cut when covid funding ended. But staffing is still limited. “There’s just a lot of different things that are making it more difficult,” he said.

He also noted that Dallas County now receives immunization registry data only once a month, rather than daily, making it harder to track vaccine coverage. “We don’t have that yet. … It’s not real time,” he said.

Protecting the youngest

As the holiday season approaches, experts urge families with newborns to take extra care:

Ensure infants and children are up to date with their childhood vaccines and that everyone in the family is up to date with their vaccines for influenza, covid, and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus.
Keep sick visitors away.
Seek care quickly if an infant has a cough or pauses breathing.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Once the haze clears from Thanksgiving sales, you might feel like a triumphant bargain hunter — or maybe you’ll be panicking over your receipts. Either way, you’re not alone.

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“Retailers have been pushing people to shop earlier and harder for years,” says Melissa Caro, a certified financial planner based in New York City and founder of digital platform My Retirement Network. “It’s incredibly normal to overshoot a bit on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.”

In fact, holiday shoppers plan to spend $1,107, on average, for gifts this year, according to a NerdWallet study, which is $182 more than last year’s average.

Overspending happens for people at all income levels, says Tom Geoghegan, a CFP with Beacon Hill Private Wealth in Summit, New Jersey. “It doesn’t really matter if you’re making five figures, high six figures or even seven figures,” he says. “People just tend to get out over their skis and then that guilt comes in.”

But your November guilt doesn’t have to ruin the rest of your holidays. Here’s how to recover from any overspending and set yourself up for smoother holidays ahead.

Do a shopping reality check

In the wake of your Thanksgiving shopping spree, look at all of your purchases (or make a list) and evaluate: Did you buy holiday gifts, and are you happy with them? Did you overspend? Did you make any impulse buys?

“Most people don’t do an honest inventory, and that’s where the trouble starts,” Caro says.

When you look at the whole haul, Caro says, a few things usually will be clear: “What was an actual gift you’re happy about, and what was impulse noise driven by limited-time deals and ‘act now’ messaging?” she asks.

It might be that you got stellar gifts for some people in your life and you’re done with that shopping. If that’s the case, check them off your list and don’t do any more browsing for them in December.

Make use of return policies

If you end up with regrets, remember that you can return things. Retailer return policies around the holidays are typically fairly generous, in order to allow giftees time to return unwanted presents.

“If you truly overspent, it’s not defeat to take things back,” Caro says. “On the flip side, if you look at everything and think, ‘Actually these are the gifts I wanted to give,’ then call it done.”

Returning purchases can help you rescue a budget in distress, particularly if your shopping is jeopardizing your ability to pay for basic expenses in December.

You don’t want to put yourself in a position where your holiday spending creates a credit card bill that takes three to six months to pay off next year, Geoghegan says. Not only will you pay interest on that balance, but it could throw off some of the financial goals you’ve already set.

“We don’t want people to be in a situation where they’re having to cut back on the 529,” Geoghegan says.

Set a spending cap

After you’ve dipped your toes in the holiday shopping waters, put some limits on the rest of your spending. How much more can you reasonably lay out on the holidays? That number may be smaller than previous years if you spend a big chunk during Thanksgiving weekend sales.

“The goal isn’t a perfect budget,” Geoghegan says. “It’s stopping a spiral. A single number for gifts, travel and gatherings tends to work better than tracking every line item.”

If that number is looking slim, now’s the time to consider trade-offs to keep overall costs down. You might decide you’ll eat fewer dinners out in December, for instance, or stop ordering takeout.

“It’s those kinds of swaps, rather than ‘Nobody can use their credit card for the rest of the month,’” Geoghegan says. “We still have time to — maybe not right the ship, but we have time to at least make it not the Titanic.”

Pump the brakes on impulse buys

If Thanksgiving weekend shopping turns into a free-for-all, it pays to put some guardrails around the rest of your holiday spending.

At a basic level, tracking your purchases, whether that’s in a Google Doc or a spreadsheet, can help you prevent gift creep — the phenomenon of picking up “just one more” stocking stuffer for your giftees.

To slow yourself down, consider giving yourself a 24-hour waiting period before buying. “Just see how you feel about it the next day,” Caro says. “A lot of times that will eliminate the overspending, and that kind of helps you be a little more thoughtful around gift giving.”

Plan for next year

If you’re veering toward spending more than you planned this holiday season, bookmark a month or two in 2026 to buckle down and pay off those bills.

“A month is not terribly difficult to handle,” says John Bell, a CFP and owner of Free State Financial Planning in Highland, Maryland. “It’s easier than saying, ‘I’m not going to do anything for the next six months.’”

And ideally, you’ll be motivated to create a savings bucket for next year’s holidays. You could, for example, budget $1,000 for holiday spending next year.

That would mean setting aside about $91 dollars a month for the first 11 months of the year. This is far less painful than paying off a $1,000 credit card bill after the fact.

“The biggest issue I see is that people have not saved throughout the year and don’t have a defined amount they are going to spend on each person,” Bell says. “It’s just being more intentional and aware of it, rather than just going with the flow.”

Kate Ashford, WMS writes for NerdWallet. Email: kashford@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @kateashford.

The article Thanksgiving Debt Regrets: How to Recover If You Overspend originally appeared on NerdWallet.