Sailing the high seas. Made from EDTOY Da Vinci series.
Sailboat
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.
Constructor Elements By Tehnolog Company
These are pillars to which you attach wall panels and floors, connected by lintels. You can build the pillars up to the height you need. They have grooves to insert the walls, and the walls have holes for installation with floor-ceiling pins. Their can look very different, I didn’t find the version we want yet, but we don’t lose hope.
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.
DASDAX Puzzle Cubes – Set Contents
This set includes Tetris-like pieces which by default form a cube. The set also includes cards with 3D shapes you can try to repeat with the blocks from the set.
Michley Waffle Blocks
Waffle blocks like this Michley waffle blocks set are popular building toys. They are flat and have matching pegs on their sides. You can assemble these pieces in 2D and 3D shapes, and in different positions.
Pieces of this set have an unusually big number of pegs on them – far more than pieces of Gakken and Plus Plus. The pieces have wall patterns, windows, round openings, and other similar decorations. Some panels have the same shape, but no decoration at all. The basic models the set offers are houses and castles. However, you can build anything else from these interlocking squares and triangles. These triangular pieces are in fact less common in waffle block sets. Gakken sets, for example, severely lack them. On the other hand, this set doesn’t have arches and other similar pieces, which somewhat limits the building possibilities. The houses are the things Michley waffle blocks make best, and, sadly, there are no options for, say, cars with moving wheels.
This particular set has pieces that are 2 inches wide, so they are safe for small children to play with. These pieces are easy to hold and too big to swallow, so the manufacturer recommends them for kids who are 3 years or older.
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.
