My oldest daughter is 3 and every day when she gets home, I ask her what she did that day. Sometimes I ask it in the form of what she learned. Or who or what she played with. And every day, the answer is the same. “I played with magnet tiles”.
“Oh. But what else did you do? Did you play with any of your friends?”
“Yeah. I played with Harris and Zoe. We made magnet tiles together.”
In this sense, my wife and I pay undiscounted, north shore Chicago day care tuition in order to send our child to Magnet Tile University.
Now, it’d be one thing if she was honing in her architectural skills through various, complex, structural-integrity scenarios. Learning about neo classical design. Tossing in a good “flying buttress” every now and again. But, no. 100% of the time she plays with magnet tiles, she builds a single stack of squares.
Still, the point remains: I can’t recommend this (relatively expensive) toy enough. A set of 60 tiles, which costs ~$70, will provide countless hours of your child’s attention. And I guarantee you will get your moneys worth. A la your 24-year-old self at a $40 all-you-can-drink deal just absolutely demolishing whiskey diets. The investment will be paid back in spades.
Side note: it may even end up being one of those Good Will Hunting situations where you find out your child is a prodigy, in this case an architectural phenom building castles.
They make for a fabulous gift; one I’d recommend keeping over at grandma and grandpa’s house as well.
Happy building.
Anthony Guerreso