The joys of Magnatiles!

For parents out there who have not yet experienced the joys of Magnatiles, I urge you to buy a set. While a set of Magnatiles are not cheap, they are without a doubt the best "toy" a preschooler can have and in fact my two daughters have these in their preschool classrooms.

What are Magnatiles?

The first day my then-3 yr old played with the tiles, 2013

A set of Magnatile will set you back between $100-$200 and each contains colourful sturdily built plastic magnetic tiles in various shapes and sizes that can be used to magnetically connect to each other to build amazing structures and shapes.

Our set was obtained from an educational stored called Lakeshore Learning and it has honestly kept my three children (yes even my 19month old) happily occupied for hours.

For my 3 year old, the focus early on seemed to be on the shapes and their spatial relationship to other pieces. She enjoyed connected square pieces with other square pieces and grouping the triangles together etc.

I still remember when my second daughter received a set from a good friend of ours for her second birthday.  My older daughter immediately hijacked the gift and sat in her room playing alone with the tiles, having fun building grand structures - and even more fun breaking them down and watching them collapse to the ground with one quick swoop and plastic-y sounding crash!

In fact, this very process of building and then demolishing tiny masterpieces was what enabled my older children to enjoy the Magnatile with their baby brother! The girls would create fantastic forms (sometimes spending much time and effort on impressive structures)  and then they would beckon their baby brother over to break it.  He would teeter over and relish in the joys of destruction the way only a baby can.  Repetively, my children would be so entertained by this simple and fun "game" they had invented. And so it made me realize that the joys of these tiles are not just in its construction but also in its destruction!

Created by my 4 year old. I love how a simple rectangle develops a pointed end as it rises vertically

There aren't many child-friendly activities that offer children pure entertainment both whilst playing independently as well as with others.  This is the appeal of Magnatiles - that children can enjoy building things out of the tiles alone but they can also receive an great amount of satisfaction building (and breaking) the same structures with others.  I've seen my daughter sit and build alone quietly while her sister completed a jigsaw puzzle and at other times, they work beautifully together to build 'castles', 'Arendelle', or a spaceship!

My 4 year old now creates amazingly complex structures.  Here, a "simple" box shape is enhanced by an angled addition with triangular spikes and an intriguing way of balancing off the edge.

So what do children learn from Magnatiles? Geometry, angles, fundamentals in construction, magnetics, gravity, form, puzzle building!

My four year old daughter has been enjoying the Magnatiles for almost two years and it has been fascinating to observe how even the way she plays with the Magnatiles has evolved. In the beginning as a young 3 year old, it was all about the shapes and colours.  Could she group all the squares together and build one block? Could she made turrets out of all the triangles isosceles?

Then over time, she gained a more sophisticated approach to the use of the tiles. She started making patterns, putting two triangles together to make squares, or using other shapes in general to create new shapes.  She would play with the colours of the tiles and test out angles and non-standard shapes.

More recently as a 4.5 year old, she is playing with challenging forms, pushing the limits of gravity and playing with force and tension to introduce bends and changes in angles to basic shapes. She thinks outside of the box more and more each day and it shows in her creations.  Her pieces are unpredictably interesting and awe-striking.  Occasionally, she has elaborate and imaginative stories to accompany her structure, which shows that her thought process is so much deeper than the superficial creation of a 3D shape. These tiles are just wonderful!


If you don't have a set, go out and buy it today! Ps this is not a paid or endorsed advertisement!! Just advice from one parent to another!!