Constructions are also more likely to remain intact as compared to wooden blocks for instance, where the slightest movement or a block that’s not put properly could easily send an entire construction to come crashing down.Ĭonstruction play with magnetic tiles also lends itself to so many opportunities for developing important life skills like learning resilience, perseverance and mental strength to face setbacks and I talk about it more in depth in this post.Īs children get older and become more engaged in imaginative play, construction and imaginative play are really a match made in heaven as they could potentially build props, settings and landscapes for the stories that are in their head, or come up with stories based on the construction that they have built. It comes together and comes apart easily unlike something like duplo which requires more precision and developed fine motor skills. Magnetic tiles are honestly the favourite/most used construction material in our household at this point in time and I think it is because of how easy it is to construct and build with (considering I have two young toddlers). Such a wonderful resource for heuristic play, which is the idea of allowing babies and young children to explore and discover the properties of objects through free play.Įven as a slightly older toddler, this exploration of the magnetism is still happening when my 2yo attempts to test the limits of the magnet strength through various ways of building her constructions which leads me to my next point.įrom building tall towers and structures, to constructing transport vehicles, farms and houses with windows and gates when we got our set of Playmags. This was exactly how my second-born began playing with these at 8mo. She would sit holding two pieces of square tiles, pulling them apart and pushing them back together over and over again. My toddler sorts them into neat piles of different colours and shapes before we put them away and ensures she stacks the small square pieces evenly across the large square pieces so besides developing her independence and self-help skills, solidifying her knowledge of colours and shapes, she is also exploring heaps of math concepts in a totally hands-on way. Sorting happens even during pack up time. Sorting was and continues to be a favourite way of using these tiles. In the rest of this post, I share 10 different ways that my kids have used our magnetic tiles, both as babies and toddlers.įrom the simple sorting when we only had Magna-Tiles, to the epic sorting/ construction that Miss 2 attempted to do with our Earth Tiles (which are wooden magnetic tiles) as well as Playmags. By this definition, it can be played with by different age groups of children. They are wonderful toys that can be described as 90% child and 10% toy as they leave plenty of room for a child’s input. Magnetic tiles are incredibly open-ended and can be played with in multiple and varied ways. Since both brands were compatible for use together, I decided that Playmags would be an amazing addition/ complement to what we had and would bring forth new ways of imaginative and construction play for both my 1yo and 2yo. We really love our Magna-Tiles but I’ve heard and read so many positive reviews about Playmags that I was simply tempted to say the least, especially when the 150-piece Playmags set I had my eye on had a variety of pieces that the Magna-Tiles didn’t have – the cars, the windows, the gates, the 4-part windows, the rectangles and the really cool Clickins features. Why the switch to Playmags for a second set? Seeing how much use my kids were getting out of them, I knew it wouldn’t take us long to outgrow the 100 pieces so for a birthday this year, we added the 150-piece Playmags to our collection of magnetic tiles and we haven’t looked back. My 15mo on the other hand started playing with them since about 8mo. We’ve had the 100-piece Magna-Tiles for about one and a half years now and with the exception of about a month somewhere in the middle where my 2.5yo gravitated towards wooden blocks and duplo, she has honestly played with them nearly every single day from the time she was about 1.5yo. One of the most common messages I get on my Instagram account is “What are the favourites/most-played with/must-have toys in your house?” Well today I’m casting the spotlight on our ‘Most Played With Toy’ and sitting WAY at the top of this leader-board are our Magnetic Tiles.
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