Magna Tiles have been around since 1997 and are a favorite in many households. They are a great introduction to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) learning. The recommended age starts at three, and that is the perfect age to begin incorporating STEM learning and laying a solid foundation for your child’s future. Magna tiles are shaped tiles that have magnets around their outer edge and are great for building and being creative. Let talk about cool things to build with magna tiles.
Magna tiles are a great addition to any child’s toy collection, and learning to build different things with the tiles is an adventure itself.
Our List of Cool Things to Build with Magna Tiles
Here are some ways to help your child get creative with their Magna tiles.
- Learn the alphabet and numbers. You can buy Magna tile sets with the alphabet and numbers, and you can also build the actual letter and numbers with your child out of the tiles. This is a great opportunity to show the upper- and lower-case letters and pair up numbers to make bigger numbers.
- Build animals. You can use Magna tiles to build animals, insects, and dinosaurs. Creating a favorite animal is a fun and creative use of magnetic tiles and a great way to learn some design skills.
- Educational. You can use Magna tile as an educational tool, and it can help your child learn counting, sorting, patterns, and matching skills. They can be drawn on with dry-erase markers, and they are also great to take with you travelling.
- With other toys. Magna tiles can be used alongside other toys. They can build a house for dolls and furniture to go in the house, a barn for toy animals, cars, and so much more. Magna tiles are a toy that will grow with your child.
- Playing dominoes with magnetic tiles will keep your kids engaged for hours and have them coming back for more. There is something so satisfying to watch them fall one by one. Start by laying down a row of tiles on the floor, almost like a track. Then stand another tile on top where the two squares that are laying down meet. Keep doing this until you have a nice row of tiles set up, then knock them over like dominoes. Your kids can get creative with this, build several rows, and race to see which falls fastest. They can add twists and turns; there is no limit.
- Create a maze. There really are no limits to how many mazes your kids can design using Magna tiles. To amp up the fun, you could take turns blowing a ping pong ball through the maze and see who gets the ping pong ball to the end the fastest, without knocking it down, of course.
- Sensory play. Magna tiles are a great addition to a sensory bin. Throw them in will some rice, kinetic sand, or whatever you like into a bin and let your child’s imagination go wild. They can build little cups, scopes, or whatever they can think up with the tiles.
- Create colors. Magna tiles are an excellent way to teach your child primary and secondary colors. Since they are translucent, you can place two colors together and make a third color. This might not be so fun for older kids who have already learned about the color wheel, but it’s a great learning opportunity for younger kids.
- Use on metal surfaces. You can use cookie sheets, table legs, even your garage door. Magna tiles will stick to anything metal and will provide hours of entertainment and creativity to your child.
- Create a marble run. This is another great way to get the creative juices flowing. You can have your kids create a marble run, and you can hold competitions and have everyone build one and see whose marble goes the fastest, or you can make them on various surfaces.
- Knock them over. This is a super basic game, but so fun. Get your child to build up the tiles into a tower as high as they can, and then knock it over. You can even make it a game and let them throw a softball or a bean bag at the tower to knock it over. Kids love to be destructive, and this is a great way to let them be as destructive as they want.
- Build shapes. Magna tiles are an excellent way to teach your toddler about shapes. The tiles themselves come in the shapes of triangles and squares. You can have your kids build shapes out of the tiles like a 3D square, triangle, pyramid, or hexagon. Magna tiles are great for making learning fun and effortless.
- Build vehicles. Kids love to use Magna tiles to build vehicles, and you can buy Magna tile kits that actually come with wheels and instructions on how to create certain vehicles. You don’t have to make it complicated and stick to building cars, trucks, or even school buses, and your kids will still have a great time.
How many Magna tiles does my child need?
It would be a good idea to splurge and get one of the bigger sets of Magna tiles. That will give your child lots of freedom when it comes to building. You can buy 100-piece sets. You can also buy cars and bases to use with your Magna tiles, these aren’t necessary, but they will add to the fun of your Magna tile set. If you have a couple of kids, you may need to buy more so they can make their own creations, and you don’t have fights break out over there not being enough tiles.
Conclusion
Magna tiles are a great toy to engage your child in open-ended play and an excellent introduction to STEM toys. I hope you leave this article with some good ideas of cool things to build with magna tiles with your kids. Magna tiles will bring hours of play and will last for years in your child’s toy rotation.