Pythagoras is a magnetic construction set from Japan. It features colorful plastic blocks with magnets. It is a simple and charming construction set designed for young children. One of the sets from Pythagoras that impressed me the most was the arches. Now, construction set from the same company are available on Amazon. The components are very similar – basic cubes, blocks, arches, prisms, and cylinders.
Japanese waffle blocks Gakken set with a popular cartoon character.
Unlike Plus Plus waffle blocks, Gakken blocks have pieces of many different shapes. They have round and curved pieces, long beams and H-like pieces. The empty spaces inside the blocks also can have different sizes and shapes, so you can stack inside different pieces in different positions. All this allows even more building possibilities than the waffle blocks sets with similar pieces. However, some pieces have less connection opgtions, because they don’t have pegs on the sides, or have only one hole.
Gakken brand appeared in Tokyo back in 1946 when it became an important component of Japan’s post-war efforts to rebuild the nation. Back then, it became incredible important to properly raise a new generation that will be able to create a better future.
The founder and educator, Hideto Furuoka, created first waffle blocks Gakken set. He later told that his inspiration was traditional Japanese wooden houses. There he saw an idea of flat blocks people can took apart and rebuild again when they need to. So he decided to create a toy which repeats this principle. Children can connect these Japanese waffle building blocks, stack them, lay them, plug, or tuck blocks in different orientations, for example, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.
Bouquet for Mother’s Day. Zoob Sparkle exists in 2 versions: 20 parts and 60 parts. Despite all the charm of the interesting color scheme, transparent parts with sparkles are more fragile, especially the green ones, and we often break them. I must admit that manufacturers replace broken parts, but only in the United States.
Back in 1997, inventor Michael Grey introduced Zoob, a toy inspired by the science of motion and organism development. Zoob represents an acronym for Zoology, Ontology, Ontogeny, and Botany. Each set has rod-like pieces with joint balls and sockets on their ends. Each of these balls has small bumps on its surface, so the joints can both move and stay in a certain position if you need them to.
This innovative toy features a ball and socket connection system, mimicking the natural movement and design found in people, animals, and machines. With just five basic shapes, Zoob offers 20 different ways to connect them together.
Zoob building sets have won awards because they’re different from regular building blocks. They use plastic pieces that snap together, like gears and joints, to build all kinds of objects, limited only by your imagination. After you build something with Zoob or Zoob Sparkle, you can actually play with it – the pieces were designed to move after being assembled, so you can have fun with the toys you create.
Zoobs are great for helping children improve their fine motor skills. The pieces are small enough to easily manipulate and put them together, but they’re not too tiny like some other toys, so it’s easier for kids who find small objects tricky.
The older brother built a simple robot, Afonya adds the epaulettes.
A very simple building. 2-year-old Afonya actively participated in the construction. Slides are close to each other, and you can lower 2 cars at the same time.
New Tegu set – 42 parts of 9 shapes in 3 color options. 4 tall poles, 4 medium poles, 6 extra long bars, 6 long bars, 6 short bars, 6 cubes, 2 parallelograms, 4 small trapeziums, and 4 wheels. In my opinion, its a very good package – no need to buy additional wheels, it has a lot of slats, there are parallelograms and trapeziums. Our first Tegu set consisted only of cubes and planks, it was difficult to make something interesting from such a set.
We tried out the blocks from a Russian manufacturer of magnetic construction sets and mosaic Magneticus. Alesya made an arch and a bridge for her favorite toy cars. If it were made with regular wooden or plastic blocks, the bridge would come apart, but with the magnetic blocks, it turned out sturdy. The child is happy, but with 32 blocks from 2 sets, it’s still not enough for her.
There are jellyfish, angelfish, sunfish… And Arisha made a fortress fish.
I don’t remember for how long we had this Malysh building set. It’s an interesting one, it’s more like a Gakken than Plus Plus, but also it’s unique in its own ways. It’s hard to buy right now, which is a pity.
Unlike Plus Plus waffle blocks, Gakken blocks have pieces of many different shapes. They have round and curved pieces, long beams and H-like pieces. The empty spaces inside the blocks also can have different sizes and shapes, so you can stack inside different pieces in different positions. All this allows even more building possibilities than the waffle blocks sets with similar pieces. However, some pieces have less connection opgtions, because they don’t have pegs on the sides, or have only one hole.
Gakken brand appeared in Tokyo back in 1946 when it became an important component of Japan’s post-war efforts to rebuild the nation. Back then, it became incredible important to properly raise a new generation that will be able to create a better future.
The founder and educator, Hideto Furuoka, created first Gakken waffle buidling blocks. He later told that his inspiration was traditional Japanese wooden houses. There he saw an idea of flat blocks people can took apart and rebuild again when they need to. So he decided to create a toy which repeats this principle. Children can connect these Japanese waffle building blocks, stack them, lay them, plug, or tuck blocks in different orientations, for example, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.
The set contains 21 pieces. 11 of them are gears of 4 colors, both large and small.
The first thing the kids did when they opened the kit was to build a chain and try twisting and turning it. Everything connects and spins perfectly. Sometimes small gears fly out of the chain on high speed, but we put them back immediately.
At first, I was biased towards this set. I thought that it would be uninteresting, a one-time set for a couple of crafts. But the set turned out to be very entertaining and always in demand.
With 2 Edtoy Davinci Block Gear sets, we also added cubes, cones, halves of cylinders, pyramids and tubular parts in our Edtoy arsenal.
Another craft from this set.
