Plus-Plus Building Blocks: The Award-Winning Danish Construction Toy Your Kids Will Love

Posted on February 07, 2026 by Lubica Misevski

Discover why Plus-Plus has become one of the most popular educational building toys in Australia, and how these unique interlocking blocks support child development from ages 1 to 12.

If you're searching for a building toy that truly grows with your child, stimulates creativity, and supports essential developmental skills, Plus-Plus building blocks deserve a closer look. These award-winning Danish construction toys have taken the educational toy world by storm, and for good reason. At KidzInc, we've seen firsthand how Plus-Plus captivates children of all ages, from toddlers just learning to grasp objects to pre-teens creating intricate 3D masterpieces.

What Is a Plus-Plus Block?

Plus-Plus is a unique construction toy that challenges the traditional concept of building blocks. Unlike conventional square or rectangular blocks, Plus-Plus features a distinctive shape that looks exactly like its name suggests: two plus signs joined together (+ +). This simple yet ingenious design is what makes Plus-Plus so versatile and engaging.

Each standard Plus-Plus piece measures just 20mm x 12mm, making them perfectly sized for small hands to grip and manipulate. For younger children (ages 1+), Plus-Plus offers the BIG range, with oversized pieces measuring 50mm x 30mm—three times larger than standard pieces and specifically designed to eliminate choking hazards while remaining easy for toddlers to connect.

The magic of Plus-Plus lies in its simplicity. With just one shape, children can create literally anything they imagine. The pieces interlock in multiple directions, allowing builders to create flat 2D mosaics, pixel art designs, or complex 3D structures. The satisfying "click" when pieces connect provides instant tactile feedback that children love, encouraging them to keep building and experimenting.

The Danish Design Philosophy

Plus-Plus was developed in Denmark with a clear philosophy: one shape, endless possibilities. This Scandinavian approach to toy design emphasises simplicity, quality, and open-ended play. Rather than providing instruction manuals for every possible creation, Plus-Plus encourages children to experiment, problem-solve, and create their own unique designs. While themed sets come with inspiration guides, the real beauty of Plus-Plus is that there's no "wrong" way to build.

What Age Are Plus-Plus Blocks For?

One of the most remarkable features of Plus-Plus is its incredibly wide age range, making it a toy that truly grows with your child.

Plus-Plus BIG: Ages 1-5 Years

For the youngest builders, Plus-Plus BIG provides the perfect introduction to construction play. Available in beautiful themed colour palettes like BIG Bloom (soft peach, vanilla, lilac tones) and BIG Breeze (refreshing blues, mint, and camel), these oversized pieces are safe for children as young as 12 months. At 50mm x 30mm, they're large enough to eliminate choking hazards whilst remaining easy for small hands to grasp and manipulate. The pieces are simple enough for toddlers to connect successfully, making them available in compact 15-piece tubes perfect for travel.

The BIG range helps toddlers and preschoolers develop crucial early skills including fine motor coordination, colour recognition, spatial awareness, and problem-solving. Starting with simple 2D patterns, young children gradually progress to basic stacking and eventually simple 3D structures as their confidence and skills grow.

Standard Plus-Plus: Ages 5-12+ Years

Once children reach around age 5, they're ready for the standard Plus-Plus pieces (20mm x 12mm). This smaller size opens up a whole new world of building possibilities. Themed 100-piece tubes like Lion, Shark, Flamingo, Mecha Bot, and Ogre include instructions for specific creations but can also be used for freeform building.

The Colour Cars collections offer 200 pieces with baseplate, 4 rolling wheels, and instructions for building actual functioning vehicles in themes like Fire (red, orange, yellow) and Candy (bright pastels). For even more ambitious projects, 240-piece tubes like Basic Mix (primary colours), Pearl Mix (shimmery pastels), and themed sets like the Saturn V Rocket provide detailed building instructions.

Activity Pads combine Plus-Plus building with colour-coding activities in themes like Ocean, Transportation, Fairy Tale, and Space. These puzzle-by-number sets help children develop pattern-following skills whilst creating themed designs.

The standard size challenges older children to develop precision, patience, and planning skills whilst creating increasingly complex designs.

What Can You Build with Plus-Plus?

The honest answer? Anything you can imagine. But let's explore the three main building styles Plus-Plus enables.

2D Mosaics and Pixel Art

One of the most accessible ways to start with Plus-Plus is creating flat mosaics. Children can follow colour-by-number patterns from Activity Pads, create their own pixel art designs, make colourful patterns and geometric shapes, build letters, numbers, and simple pictures, or design mosaics to hang on walls or display.

The 2D building approach helps younger children understand colour sorting, pattern creation, and following visual instructions before progressing to more complex 3D construction.

3D Structures and Sculptures

As skills develop, children discover that Plus-Plus pieces can connect vertically as well as horizontally, enabling three-dimensional creations. They can build animals and creatures by following instructions from themed tubes, construct buildings, houses, and castles, create vehicles (especially exciting with the Colour Cars sets that include actual rolling wheels), build rockets and space vehicles (the Saturn V Rocket set provides detailed instructions), design abstract sculptures and geometric forms, or create characters from their favourite stories.

The beauty of 3D building with Plus-Plus is that structures hold together remarkably well despite the toy's simplicity. The interlocking design creates stable constructions that children can display with pride.

Themed Guided Building

Many Plus-Plus sets include instructions for specific creations, providing the perfect balance between guided learning and creative freedom. The Saturn V Rocket (240 pieces) offers step-by-step instructions to build NASA's iconic rocket, teaching children about space exploration and engineering. Colour Cars Fire and Candy (200 pieces each) provide instructions for building race cars or vehicles, with functional rolling wheels for play.

Animal Tubes (100 pieces) guide children in creating specific animals like lions, sharks, flamingos, or ogres. Puzzle-by-Number Activity Pads combine Plus-Plus with colour-coding to create ocean scenes, transportation, fairy tales, or space adventures.

These guided projects build confidence and teach construction techniques that children then apply to their own original creations.

Child Development Benefits: Why Plus-Plus Is More Than Just a Toy

As an educational toy retailer specialising in products that support child development, we at KidzInc are passionate about understanding how toys contribute to learning. Plus-Plus excels across multiple developmental domains.

Fine Motor Skills and Hand-Eye Coordination

Every time a child picks up a Plus-Plus piece, aligns it with another piece, and presses them together, they're developing crucial fine motor skills. The small size of standard Plus-Plus pieces (and appropriately larger size of BIG pieces for toddlers) requires precise finger movements that strengthen the small muscles in hands and fingers—the same muscles needed for writing, buttoning clothes, and countless daily tasks.

The hand-eye coordination required to align pieces correctly, especially when building 3D structures, helps develop the visual-motor integration essential for activities from sports to reading.

Spatial Reasoning and Mathematical Thinking

Building with Plus-Plus naturally teaches spatial concepts. Children learn to understand how shapes fit together in space, visualise how flat pieces create three-dimensional forms, recognise patterns and symmetry, estimate quantities and plan how many pieces they'll need, and understand concepts like height, width, depth, and balance.

These spatial reasoning skills form the foundation for later mathematical and scientific thinking, including geometry, architecture, and engineering.

Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking

When a Plus-Plus creation doesn't work the first time—when a structure topples over or colours don't create the intended pattern—children engage in natural problem-solving. They must figure out why something fell (cause and effect), how to make it more stable (trial and error), what needs to change (analytical thinking), and whether they can approach things differently (flexible thinking).

This type of hands-on problem-solving develops resilience, patience, and the understanding that mistakes are valuable learning opportunities.

Creativity and Imagination

Perhaps most importantly, Plus-Plus is an open-ended toy that encourages limitless creativity. Whilst some sets include instructions, the real magic happens when children move beyond the guide and create their own unique designs. This type of creative play builds confidence in original thinking, develops artistic expression, encourages innovation and experimentation, and supports narrative and imaginative play (especially when creating characters or scenes).

Focus, Patience, and Persistence

Building with Plus-Plus requires sustained attention and patience. Children learn to maintain focus on a task over extended periods, persist when construction becomes challenging, plan ahead rather than act impulsively, and experience the satisfaction of completing a complex project.

These executive function skills—focus, patience, planning, and persistence—are crucial for academic success and lifelong learning.

Colour Recognition and Sorting

Especially valuable for younger children, Plus-Plus sets in themed colour palettes (like BIG Bloom's soft pastels or Colour Cars Fire's reds and oranges) support colour identification and naming, colour sorting and categorisation, understanding colour relationships and combinations, and following colour-coded instructions (in Activity Pads).

Is Plus-Plus Better Than LEGO?

This is one of the most common questions parents ask, and the answer is: they're different toys that serve different purposes, and many families benefit from having both.

How Plus-Plus Differs from LEGO

One Simple Shape vs. Multiple Brick Types: LEGO uses dozens of different brick shapes, each with specific connection points. Plus-Plus uses just one shape that connects in multiple directions. This simplicity makes Plus-Plus more intuitive for younger children and encourages creative thinking rather than following specific building patterns.

Flat and 3D Building: Plus-Plus excels at both 2D mosaic creation and 3D structures, whilst LEGO focuses primarily on three-dimensional building. The ability to easily transition between flat designs and sculptures makes Plus-Plus particularly versatile.

Size and Portability: Standard Plus-Plus pieces are smaller and lighter than most LEGO bricks, making them more portable. The tube packaging also makes Plus-Plus sets perfect for travel, restaurants, or visiting grandparents.

Open-Ended vs. Set-Based: Whilst both offer creativity, LEGO often focuses on themed sets with specific builds (like Star Wars ships or buildings), whereas Plus-Plus emphasises open-ended creation. Neither approach is "better"—they support different types of play.

Age Accessibility: Plus-Plus BIG is safe from age 1+, making it accessible much earlier than most LEGO products (typically 4+). This early start helps develop construction skills that will serve children throughout childhood.

Price Point: Generally, Plus-Plus offers excellent value, with 100-piece tubes starting around $15 AUD, 200-piece sets with accessories around $35 AUD, and 240-piece sets around $30 AUD. This makes it accessible for families to build a substantial collection.

When to Choose Plus-Plus

Plus-Plus might be the better choice if you're looking for a toy for very young children (1-3 years) with the BIG range, something lightweight and portable for travel, a focus on 2D mosaic and pixel art creation, open-ended creative play with minimal instruction, an introduction to building toys before moving to more complex systems, a minimalist aesthetic and simple, intuitive design, or an eco-friendly option.

When to Choose LEGO

LEGO might be preferable if you want themed sets based on specific franchises or characters, highly detailed architectural or mechanical builds, more varied piece types for specialised construction, building sets that can be displayed as specific recognisable models, or integration with existing LEGO collections.

The Best Answer: Both!

Many families find that Plus-Plus and LEGO complement each other beautifully. Plus-Plus develops early construction skills, creativity, and spatial reasoning, whilst LEGO offers different building challenges and themed play. They're different tools in the developmental toy toolkit, each with unique strengths.

The Sustainability Story: Why Danish Manufacturing Matters

One aspect that sets Plus-Plus apart from many other building toys is its exceptional commitment to environmental sustainability. Every Plus-Plus piece is designed and manufactured in Denmark in a zero-plastic-waste factory, powered entirely by renewable wind energy (100% green energy), made from food-grade PE plastic that's BPA-free, PVC-free, and phthalate-free, produced using a "no waste" process where all excess plastic is re-ground and used for new Plus-Plus pieces, and completely recyclable, including both the pieces and the tube packaging (made from food-grade PETG).

For environmentally conscious families, knowing that every Plus-Plus purchase supports sustainable manufacturing practices adds meaningful value beyond the toy itself.

Popular Plus-Plus Collections Available at KidzInc

Let's explore some of the most popular Plus-Plus collections you'll find at KidzInc.

For Toddlers (Ages 1-5): Plus-Plus BIG

BIG Bloom (15 pieces) retails for $19.99 AUD and features soft, nature-inspired colours including peach, vanilla, lilac, violet, and white. Perfect for creating gentle, calming designs and introducing colour concepts to young children.

BIG Breeze (15 pieces) is also $19.99 AUD and offers a coastal-inspired palette with dark blue, cornflower, mint, camel, and vanilla. Ideal for ocean themes and provides calming, soothing play for toddlers.

BIG Basic (15 pieces) at $19.99 AUD features classic primary colours that support fundamental colour learning and create bright, cheerful designs.

For Young Builders (Ages 5+): Themed 100-Piece Tubes

The Animal Collection at $14.99 AUD each includes Lion, Shark, Flamingo, and Ogre tubes. Each contains 100 pieces and instructions for building the featured creature, plus ideas for other creations.

Mecha Bot (100 pieces) for $14.99 AUD lets children build their own robot with this engineering-focused set that combines creativity with mechanical design thinking.

For Vehicle Enthusiasts: Colour Cars Series

Colour Cars Candy (200 pieces) at $34.99 AUD lets you build vibrant candy-coloured cars with this complete set including 200 pieces, 1 baseplate for stability, 4 rolling wheels, and instructions. The bright pastel palette is perfect for creating eye-catching vehicles.

Colour Cars Fire (200 pieces) for $34.99 AUD creates blazing hot race cars with pieces in red, orange, and yellow fire colours. Includes baseplate, 4 rolling wheels, and instructions for building dynamic vehicles.

Colour Cars Hero (200 pieces) at $34.99 AUD offers another exciting Colour Cars option with its own unique colour palette and vehicle-building possibilities.

For Space Enthusiasts: Saturn V Rocket

Saturn V Rocket (240 pieces) at $29.99 AUD lets children build NASA's iconic rocket with this detailed set including step-by-step instructions. Perfect for children interested in space exploration, science, and engineering. The completed rocket makes an impressive display piece.

For Expanded Collections: 240-Piece Tubes

Basic Mix (240 pieces) for $29.99 AUD provides classic primary colours (red, blue, yellow, green, white, black) offering endless building possibilities and the foundation for any Plus-Plus collection.

Pearl Mix (240 pieces) at $29.99 AUD features shimmery pastel colours for children who prefer softer, more subtle colour palettes in their creations.

For Guided Creativity: Activity Pads

Puzzle-by-Number Activity Pads at $29.99 AUD each come in Ocean, Transportation, Fairy Tale, or Space themes. These clever sets combine Plus-Plus building with colour-coding activities, providing structured creative challenges perfect for developing pattern-following skills.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Plus-Plus

Based on feedback from KidzInc customers and our own experience, here are some tips for maximising the Plus-Plus experience.

Start with a Themed Tube

For children new to Plus-Plus, starting with a themed tube (like an animal or the Saturn V Rocket) provides the confidence boost of following instructions and creating something recognisable. Once they've mastered guided building, they'll feel more confident creating their own designs.

Create a Dedicated Building Space

Plus-Plus pieces are small and can scatter. Setting up a dedicated building area—even just a tray or shallow container—helps contain pieces and makes cleanup easier. For display, baseplates (included in Colour Cars sets) help stabilise creations.

Mix and Match Sets

All standard Plus-Plus pieces are compatible, and all BIG pieces work together. Don't hesitate to combine sets to expand colour options and creative possibilities. The Saturn V Rocket pieces can become part of your Basic Mix collection once the rocket is complete.

Store by Colour (Optional)

Some families enjoy sorting Plus-Plus pieces by colour into small containers. This makes it easier to find specific colours when following instructions or creating colour-based designs, though it's certainly not necessary—part of Plus-Plus's appeal is its simplicity.

Display Creations

Invest in baseplates or small shelves where children can display their favourite Plus-Plus creations. Seeing their work showcased builds pride and confidence, and reminds them that their creativity has value.

Travel-Friendly Entertainment

The compact tube packaging makes Plus-Plus ideal for travel. Keep a tube in the car, bring one to restaurants, or pack it for flights. The 15-piece BIG tubes are particularly perfect for toddlers on the go.

The Bottom Line: Why Plus-Plus Belongs in Every Australian Home

After seeing countless children engage with Plus-Plus at KidzInc, we're convinced this award-winning Danish toy earns its place amongst the best educational construction toys available in Australia.

It grows with your child from BIG pieces at age 1 to complex 3D creations at age 12, Plus-Plus provides years of developmental support and creative play. It's genuinely educational, with the fine motor skills, spatial reasoning, problem-solving, creativity, and focus developed through Plus-Plus play supporting academic learning and lifelong skills.

The design is beautifully simple. One shape, infinite possibilities. This elegant design philosophy makes Plus-Plus intuitive, accessible, and endlessly creative. It's environmentally responsible, with Danish manufacturing, renewable energy, zero waste, and fully recyclable materials meaning you can feel good about this purchase.

Plus-Plus offers exceptional value, with sets ranging from $14.99 to $34.99 AUD providing hours of engagement and developmental benefit at accessible price points. It's travel-friendly, with compact tubes, lightweight pieces, and quiet play making Plus-Plus ideal for modern Australian families on the go.

Whether you're looking for your toddler's first building toy, a creative outlet for your school-aged child, or a screen-free activity that engages the whole family, Plus-Plus delivers. Browse the complete Plus-Plus collection at KidzInc and discover why Danish design and Australian families make the perfect match.

Ready to explore Plus-Plus? Visit KidzInc's Plus-Plus collection to browse all available sets, read detailed product descriptions, and find the perfect Plus-Plus set for your child's age and interests. With fast Australian shipping and expert customer service, KidzInc makes it easy to bring award-winning educational toys into your home.

Have questions about which Plus-Plus set is right for your child? Contact the KidzInc team at 1300 911 117 or visit our Mosman Sydney store for personalised recommendations.

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