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The Benefits of Marble Runs to Your Child

Posted on April 03, 2019 by Lubica Misevski

Marble runs: they're simple, classic toys that have been passed down through the ages. Children have been playing with marble runs for years--and many parents are surprised to learn that they have much more than simple repetitive play value. The Hape Quadrilla, Quercetti, Geomag Mechanics Gravity Track, and Smartmax for younger children all offer a range of different opportunities to engage your child in a fascinating form of play they will be sure to love.

Building Spatial Awareness

Getting a marble into those small spaces is not as easy a feat as it sounds, especially for small children who are still developing their understanding of how the world works. As they play with marble runs, however, kids will learn more about spatial awareness and develop those key fine motor skills that will help them take advantage of it. Even better, they won't realise that they're learning, because it will simply feel like play.

Raising Creativity

Creativity is a key skill for kids and adults alike. In fact, many professionals indicate that they value creativity in their employees more than any other skill. That makes developing creativity in childhood critical--and your child can enhance their creativity as they play with marble runs, exploring different tracks and learning more about how they can move each piece to create a fun, exciting run. Each construction may quickly become more outlandish than the last, leaving your child with an incredible array of creative new structures and runs to explore.

Developing Engineering Skills

In addition to creatively exploring the different arrangements of the pieces of the run, your child will be able to develop basic engineering skills as they explore how the pieces fit together. They'll learn more about cause and effect, explore how to keep their piece balanced, and learn how to improve their structures so that the marble will successfully reach the end of each track. Not only that, they'll enhance their understanding of how gravity and inertia work together to help move or stop the marble--and they'll have a blast doing it.

Enhancing Problem-Solving

The marble is stuck--again. It ran off the track instead of staying neatly in the predetermined spot. Whatever your child's problem, they'll immediately tackle, determining how to make the right changes so that their marble runs will work better in the future. The more they interact with the track, the more they will enhance their problem-solving skills as they learn through trial and error what works and what doesn't. In many cases, this simple exercise can improve your child's understanding of how to tackle future problems, providing them with an excellent platform for future efforts.

Improving Hand-Eye Coordination

From fitting the individual pieces of the track together to dropping the marble in just the right spot, marble runs offer an excellent opportunity for children both young and old to improve their hand-eye coordination. They'll demonstrate a solid use of fine motor skills as they put together the marble runs, place the marbles on it, and scoop them up again at the end. Even better, it's not repetitive practice. It's just a kid at play!

If you're looking for a toy that can help build both physical and mental skills for your child, marble runs are the perfect solution. Not only are they good for hours of play, they will encourage your child to think creatively and develop a wide range of STEM skills, which can then help them excel in school and in their future careers. Your child will love racing marbles down the tracks, developing increasingly complex designs or improving their understanding of the way the pieces fit together--and they'll develop those important skills at the same time.

For the entire range of marble runs hand-selected by Kidzinc, please click here.

Posted in Marble Runs, Marble Runs Australia