You can build some interesting and charismatic K’Nex creatures with a very few pieces.
KID K’NEX Zoo Friends Set – Snake
Category: Plastic Building Kits
Plastic building kits are construction sets designed for children that primarily utilize plastic components. These kits consist of various interlocking pieces, connectors, panels, and accessories that allow children to build and create a wide range of structures, vehicles, and other imaginative designs.
Plastic building kits are known for their versatility, durability, and ease of use. The pieces are often designed to fit together securely, enabling children to construct stable and sturdy creations. These kits usually come with a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, allowing for endless possibilities and encouraging children to think creatively and problem-solve while constructing their designs.
Many plastic building kits also incorporate specialized parts such as wheels, hinges, and gears, adding an extra level of functionality and enabling children to create movable and interactive models. Some kits may even include motorized components that bring the creations to life with spinning gears or moving parts.
These kits are popular among children of various age groups and provide numerous educational benefits. They promote fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, and logical thinking. Additionally, plastic building kits foster creativity, imagination, and cognitive development as children design and build their own unique structures and scenarios.
Overall, plastic building kits offer a stimulating and engaging way for children to explore construction, design, and engineering concepts while having fun and unleashing their creativity.
Clics CUBICUS
Some Clics CUBICUS building options.
ClicsToys is a Belgian company that was founded in 2001. They operate their own factory located in Kempen, where they manufacture the well-known Clics building blocks. These building sets consist of square pieces, all of which share the same form and shape. They easily connect at their edges, forming joints that can be moved.
Since the fundamental components of Clics are square, the basic forms you can build are typically cubic or brick-like. Nevertheless, thanks to the movable joints, you can connect them at various angles, resulting in diverse shapes. With careful assembly, it’s even possible to create triangular or sloping figures. However, the cubes remain the most robust and dependable structures this set can offer. Additionally, you can explore the option of crafting flat mosaics by combining pieces of different colors.
Using these plastic squares, you can construct flat surfaces and transform them into 3D shapes. Despite having relatively few extra pieces and accessories, Clics offer limitless creative possibilities. Some sets may include wheels and decorative panels, but these are the primary add-ons. On the plus side, Clics sets generally contain numerous pieces, enabling you to create complex structures with a single set.
Connect-A-Straws
Another version of the construction set with elastic tubes – the English Connect-a-Straws.
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.
Sad Transformer
This constructor went with us to the lake, so the children constructed between swimming and jumping on stones. Here are ome crafts from this day trip.
Connect-A-Straws Set Pieces
We purchased this construction set several years ago. The kides played sluggishly until we cut the straws into several pieces. Tubes have a diameter of 0.2 in, 6 colors, the connectors are blue and yellow. There also are large wheels-stands (diameter 4 inches). When this set appeared at our house, I regretted purchasing it a little. The tubes, on the one hand, are rigid and confidently hold the structure, on the other hand, due to this rigidity, they bend poorly. And after the structure has stood for some time, the tubes remain deformed forever, like the yellow tube on the left. But the kids play Connect-a-straws with interest, connecting them into chains and flowers. The tubes are easy to put on and you can insert the tube into the hole in the connector. The Chinese have a similar set by the 4M brand.
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.
USSR School Building Lesson
I studied in an ordinary Soviet school, but nevertheless, we often brought our own construction sets to the lessons. Mostly metal construction sets with screws or Polet, sometimes we had the rare Soviet Lego. We made crafts and organized exhibitions right in the classroom. Of course, the boys were more interested in the sets, but the girls weren’t far behind. There were children who did not have construction sets. The photo shows a lesson in an elementary school (Soviet school in Geneva) in the late 80s of the last century. Children create models using Quercetti gear sets. It’s a pity that the experience of lessons like that remained in the 80s…
This vintage building set is similar to the Quercetti Gears sets. It also includes baseplates, poles, and, of course, the gears. The baseplates connect like the pieces of a puzzle, they are heavy and sturdy enough to hold the whole construction in place. There are also many small colorful pins to decorate the pieces.
While there are no poles like in Quercetti sets, you can connect and interlock the baseplates in 3D, making some of them stand upright. They can also hold together at the angle, so you can build all kinds of shapes from them. Overall, these plates themselves form a good building set.
After making something from the baseplates, you can attach the gears to the finished crafts and make the gears spin. All gears are the same size, they are almost as big as the baseplates, and you can also use them just to decorate the crafts. All pieces come in many different colors. Sadly, there are few pieces overall.
This set has an educational purpose – some schools used it to teach children about the gear transmissions. The description says that the set is for children aged 4-8 years.
Snapz Building Set – Pieces
There are many building sets that mimic Clics. This Snapz building set by the Play Build is one of the better-quality Clics clones. Its pieces are nearly identical to the original Clics, sturdy and easy to connect. The only set available in Play Build store right now has 400 pieces and a storage box. The main problem with Snapz is it unimpressive wheels and the lack of decorative pieces the original Clics have. This photo by the manufacturer shows types and sizes of the Snapz pieces.
ClicsToys, a Belgian company established in 2001, operates its very own factory located in Kempen, where they craft the popular Clics building blocks. These building sets mostly have square pieces, all sharing identical form and shape. What sets Clics apart is their ability to connect smoothly at the edges, allowing flexible joint movements.
Using these plastic squares, the creative possibilities are endless, even though Clics sets usually offer relatively few extra pieces and accessories. Some sets may include wheels and decorative panels, but few extra items. The true strength of Clics lies in the generous number of pieces in their sets, allowing you to make even biggest creations with ease. The pieces of Clics are too big to swallow and easy to hold, so they are safe, but some connections can be too tricky to younger kids. So the most sets are recommended for children who are 3 years old or older. However, these sets will be interesting even for the 10-years-olds.
The fundamental building blocks in Clics are square, which naturally leads to the cubic or brick-like structures. However, the great advantage of these blocks is the ability to connect them at various angles, making diverse shapes. Careful assembly can even give you triangular or sloping figures. Nevertheless, the most robust and tough structures in Clics are cube-shaped. Additionally, you can create flat mosaics by combining pieces of different colors.
Gakken Scary Beetle
Scary… It’s the same Gakken New Block beetle, but in the dark. It actually looks creepy like that.
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 New Block. 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.
KID K’NEX Zoo Friends Set – Parrot
A pretty bird with a cap piece as a beak. Also note how the yellow beak/scale/ear triangular pieces enlarge the wings.
TAKO Cubes
You can make great cubes with Tako.
Tako is another vintage building set. Its pieces are thin, open frames of different colors and sizes. All these frames have square shapes, and they connect to each other by the edges, forming all kinds of shapes. The manufacturer mostly proposed abstract geometric shapes as possible crafts, but these shapes look pretty, and you can use them to play along with some other toys.
Tako frames connect by the edges – they have tiny rails and empty spaces along the edges to put those rails in. As you can see, the edges are slightly asymmetrical, because the two sides of the square have the rails, and the other two have empty spaces. Sadly, the number of ways you can connect the pieces is limited. Many modern building sets offer more options. Of course, the pieces of the same size hold together the best. The pieces are beautiful but delicate and fragile – they can bend slightly, but they are also relatively easy to break accidentally.
Since all pieces are squares, the basic figure you can assemble is a cube, but it’s also possible to make prisms and other figures. They, however, are more tricky to assemble. The set has pieces of 4 different sizes and 6 colors.
