Hey! I was wondering which yoyo would be good for my six year old sister. She wants to learn how to yoyo.
Any basic yoyo can be learned with. My six year old daughter uses cheap Disney yoyos to the more modern plastics. I think the YoYoFactory Velocity is good because you can adjust the responsiveness on it allowing it to grow along with her abilities. It doesn’t require much maintenance either.
String is another very important thing. Make sure you have plenty and make sure it is cut to a shorter length. If it’s too long for her she is likely to be annoyed and not even want to pick up the yoyo again.
Velocity would be nice. If you don’t want to spend a lot check a toy store for any ball bearing yoyo. Preferably small.
I’m going to recommend the yoyojam classic. Its extremely durable, upgradable, and requires almost no maintenance (o rings don’t wear out). The biggest plus is the thin gap. People often forget about this. A child is going to have to use a very short string, and short strings don’t work well with large gaps.
Make sure whatever yoyo you buy it has a thin gap.
Proyo
Because she is 6 years old. She WILL lose parts of the yoyo.
If you really want to, maybe a Fireball.
The first yoyo I ever picked up was the Power Brain XP. It is great. It has something called a smart switch where you can switch to a clutch and a regular responsive yoyo.
Hope it helps!
Agreed! I started with a Power Brain too, and it’s great because that clutch will let her get the feel and work on her throws but not worry about the return, since the yoyo will come up automatically after a certain speed is reached
what about a YYF one with a fat strings and thicker pads?
I think the YYF new Velocity.
You can tweak the responsiveness from instant to non-existant. No taking it apart(hopefully), good size, shape and weight, plus fun if she goes full unresponsive later on. Not too much money, under the $20 mark I try to keep first timers under.
Any yo-yo that you can upgrade from responsive to unresponsive.
My 6 year old brother is already completely into unresponsive play after learning responsive play on my velocity.
Get her something cheap like a Duncan Butterfly. You can pick one up at a grocery store for $3.
Young kids bounce from fascination to fascination, get her learning the basics and then go from there. I let my son play with an old Imperial that I had in the house and had him doing super basic tricks before we moved up to his current yo-yo, the YYJ Classic. He was happy at first just learning how to make the yo-yo go up and down.
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Make sure to get something without a lot of maintenance. A six year old new yoyoer will become frustrated if it stops working right, and she will be coming to you to fix it. (Not always a bad thing, but something with a lot of maintenance could start to get annoying.) Learn the basics before the maintenance.
I used to teach PE, and 6 year old children are still developing many basic motor skills that we take for granted- especially fine motor and hand-eye. Simply dribbling a basketball can be an overwhelming task. Of course there is always a child here and there with prodigal skill, but I would still assume that your little sister, like most 1st graders, is going to need a lot of practice just to successfully throw the yoyo down, turn her hand over, yank it up, and catch it (seems like alot when you break it down, huh?).
I also recommend a $3 duncan butterfly. If she doesn’t dig it, then you have yourself a nice Drew Tetz butterfly for some cheap fixed axle thrills! ;D
What about the new Yomega Crossfire, seems like it would fit the bill. 
I’d say it depends on her personality. If she’s really interested, and you think she’d put in the dedication to really learn, a YYF Velocity (which I own) or a YYJ Classic (haven’t tried) sound ideal.
The Velocity is really responsive when set all the way to easy, and doesn’t take much to learn the basics of up/down and sleeper. Plus, the adjustability makes it pretty versatile for advancing to more complicated tricks. The Velocity is pretty durable, but the dial mechanism adds more potential for it to get broken. If she’s careful with her toys, it would be a good choice.
I haven’t tried a Classic, but it looks plenty durable, and sounds like a great inexpensive way to move into advanced tricks.
If you think she is likely to get discouraged easily, I’d say go with the Power Brain XP because of the auto-return switch. That way she can get the feel for the basics. If she is still interested in progressing you can look at getting something better afterwards.