He didn’t reacted when we just called him, so we decided to check.
Hey, Deer, Are You Sleeping?
Author: TatianaZh
Tegu City
Looks like a Honduras’ bright future… The Tegu Explorer Set – Tints. Photo taken from the Tegu gallery.
Bulldozer From Magnetic Stick N Stack
Assembled the vehicle. Naturally, mommy actually did it, 2-year-old Afonya just used it. Of course, you can play with a bulldozer, but the active movements of a young motorist quickly turn it into a pile of magnetic parts. In the end, the son realized that it was necessary either to roll the vehicle around carefully, or to repair it.
Eco-Friendly Japanese Motobike For A Mouse
The mouse is happy. The motor scooter is made from the Japanese designer Magnet Block (Toyroyal).
Chicco Let’s Go!
You can compose the towers in any way you like. Alesya placed the tower on the tractor, and the magnetic elements made it possible to attach the cubes to the side. And then a cheerful cat climbed up. Go!
Chicco is a well-known and popular brand of all things for infants and toddlers. Chicco mostly makes strollers and other similar items, but there are also Chicco toys, like these building cubes. They are big, and colorful, have simple pictures on their sides, and are easy to grab and connect. The set also has wheels and animal heads. Obviously, the cubes are way too big to swallow accidentally, so they are safe and easy enough for kids who are older than 9 months. The cubes have magnets in them, but they are under the plastic surface. The cubes themselves are sturdy enough to prevent the magnets from falling out, so it’s not a safety concern.
This set looks very simple, but it is a good toy for smaller children, with many connecting possibilities and ways to play. You can build vehicles, animals, and houses, and use cubes as both 3D shapes and simple pictures. It’s a good way to enhance a toddler’s imagination and a safe way to occupy the child for a long. It’s a shame that these sets are not that common, even while the idea is pretty obvious.
Construct-O-Straws
Construct-O-Straws is an american version of the construction set with elastic tubes. It’s is not the only one, however. There is an another, simpler Canadian version called Straws and Connectors with the tubes and X-shaped connectors. Their site offers some building instructions.
Building straws, also known as building tubes, are a popular type of construction set with unique possibilities. They allow you to create silhouettes and contours of different objects and animals. All crafts from these sets can bend and move, so kids can actually play with their creations.
Instead of blocks, these sets have flexible plastic tubes, that look and act like soft cocktail straws. They can bend in any way and hold any position you want. The tubes usually attach to each other with special plastic connectors. The connectors can look and work differently in the different sets, but there are always many ways the straws can connect. The most common version is hard pins that go inside the straw’s hollow end, fixing it in place. Some connectors of this type have only one or two pins, some may have eight or ten. They also can have different forms, like sharp corners or straight rods. However, this connection type usually means that you can connect the straws only with their ends, and never with their middles.
These straws have great building potential, but, sadly, they can’t hold their shape under pressure (unlike, say, block towers that can hold something on their top). The straws’ building possibilities also depend on how long they are.
Japanese Blocks
Made from building set Gakken (Japan).
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 building set Gakken. 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.
Flamingo
My daughters didn’t explain to me, why it is a “flamingo”. I believe that because of one leg and the pink plumage. After building this bird, we realized that the bricks complement Kid K’nex’s buildings very well. Now we think a lot about it.
SmartMax Flower Power – Bornimago
In our case its actually Magneatos, but does not change the essence. Its the same plastic balls and magnetic rods. We made a small flowerbed – the toy blossomed to the great amazement of the one-year-old youngest son, who is actively playing with large magnetic rods and rolling balls right now. He immediately peeled off all the flowers, freeing the sticks for his needs, so he had to move on to decorating other kits. In general, flowers fall off plastic balls, they stick much better on metal ones.
How They Play In A Family With A Lot Of Construction Kits
We got a new set – Kid K”NEX Life Cycles set – 230 parts in total. I can recommend this set to beginning Knexomaniacs. There is nothing special for experienced builders, just wings and a LOT of parts, especially eyes. It has 10 eyes and 4 pairs of double eyes.
You can check it out on K’Nex site. You also can order pieces from them one by one. We used it, however, they accidentaly shipped our order to an address in the UK. We were happy to build all the models K’nex proposed – there were 16 of them. And then we made this chcken. We made it together with the younger ones, who were completely delighted with this mechanical chicken. And girls’ brother, who was spinning around and looking for a reason to take part in the game, build the mouse .
