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Magformers TileBlox Magnetic Tiles: The Perfect Toy for STEAM/STEM Education

Posted on July 05, 2020 by Lubica Misevski

 

Magformers, one of the world's leading manufacturers of magnetic children's toys, produces the TileBlox Magnetic Tile line: the ideal STEM toy for children ages three and up. These fantastic magnetic tiles, which come with magnets in each piece for the creation of sturdy buildings, are available in a variety of sizes and colours. You can get them in 42-piece, 60-piece, or 104-piece, and they come in bright primary rainbow colours from the Rainbow line or an array of pastels in the Inspire line--or mix and match sets for extra building fun. 

The STEM Advantage of Magformers TileBlox

Magformers TileBlox line offers a number of STEAM and STEM advantages, making them an ideal toy for little learners. In fact, magnetic tiles are a staple in every child's toy box. Consider these key advantages:

Magnetic tiles help build fine motor skills. While these tiles are large enough for little hands to wrap around them easily, as little builders work with and manipulate them, they will continue to improve their fine motor skills. Magnetic tiles offer a great deal of development at every stage along the way, with little learners putting together stacks or pulling apart the magnets and putting them back together again and older learners building increasingly complex designs that require steadily more skill.

Magnetic tiles can help kids learn about magnets and their effects. Little ones fascinated with the way things work will enjoy manipulating magnetic tiles to get a better idea of how they work together: how polarity influences the way magnets connect as well as how those interactions help them stick together or pull apart. 

Magnetic tile play helps children build problem-solving skills. Many learners quickly discover that magnetic tiles can provoke a variety of challenges. What happens when a magnetic building does not have enough support? Why does this wall fall apart? Why is a particular shape not strong enough to hold together during play and manipulation? As they interact with their magnetic tiles, children will also learn to solve problems in the building process, sharpening their overall problem-solving skills. 

Magnetic tiles help children build creativity. If they can imagine it, they can build it! Magnet tiles are perfect for building a host of projects: castles, rocket ships, playgrounds, animals, and more. Thanks to the variety of shapes available in the Magformers TileBlox sets, children can put together a variety of shapes and creations. As they continue to interact with their blocks, they will enhance their creativity and learn new ways to interact with these toys. Over time, their creations will grow larger and more complex, and they will be able to embark on many creative adventures--all with simple shapes and magnets. 

Magnetic tiles help improve hand-eye coordination. As they work to manipulate their magnetic tiles, children will improve hand-eye coordination as they work through the associations between each piece and develop a better understanding of how to manipulate them. These continued actions can help build overall coordination, including a better overall sense of spatial awareness that will help children with a variety of activities in their future.

Including STEM and STEAM toys in your child's toy box can help build their understanding of the world around them and help encourage their overall interest in science and technology-based fields.

By including magnetic tiles, like the Magformers TileBlox line, as part of your child's regular play, you will assist them in building the vital skills they need to be successful in those fields even from a young age--all without children ever realizing that they are learning.

Check out our extensive line of STEM and STEAM toys to learn more about the options available for your child as they learn and grow or explore the Magformers TileBlox Magnetic Tile collection today.

Posted in Magformers Australia, Magformers TileBlox Australia, magnetic tiles australia, STEM toys

Magnetic Tiles for Fine Tuning Motor Skills, Creativity and STEM Skills

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Lubica Misevski

Magnetic Tiles | KidzInc Australia | Online Educational Toys

Magnetic play has always been enticing to children of all ages. Over the last several years sets of magnetic tiles from brands like Magna Tile, NeoPuzzle, and MagSnaps have become very popular for home use, as well as classroom and therapeutic learning. Magnetic play encourages experimentation and imagination but also brings a host of other benefits for the child.

For younger children these colourful, magnetic tiles can help with learning about colours and sorting, as well as recognising shapes and sizes. As the child gets older, the magnetic tiles can help them add depth to their creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Building tall structures helps with hand-eye coordination and actually helps to prepare a child for reading by teaching their eyes to track the pieces as they build, as they would words on a page.

These tiles also come in useful in learning and therapeutic environments. These magnetic tiles have been shown to be especially useful for children with sensory disorders by helping to calm sensory overload and allowing them something tactile to manipulate in moments of overwhelm. Magnetic play also feeds into STEM learning which has become a huge focus in education due to the growth of STEM-related jobs.

STEM encompasses Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and these magnetic tile sets allow for interaction with each of the STEM points. In Science, the magnetic tiles help children learn about how a magnet works and can also be manipulated into Life Sciences and Biology by allowing children to build various cells, flowers, and insects out of the tiles. For Technology, magnetic play opens the discussion topics of what kinds of technological devices use magnets and what kinds of devices can be damaged by magnets. For engineering, the magnetic tiles obviously offer a host of opportunities to build a number of structures, enabling learning as they create. In Mathematics, the magnetic tiles can be used as a manipulative to learn addition and subtraction. Aside from STEM learning magnetic tiles also feed the arts by allowing many artistic opportunities for children to create anything they can imagine.

Obviously, magnetic play and magnetic tile sets bring a variety of learning benefits to the table and are a toy that your child can grow with and use on an ongoing basis, but there are a ton of different brands now due to their increased popularity. So which one is the best? Let's look at a few comparison points between three major brands - Magna Tile, NeoPuzzle, and MagSnaps.

Durability and Performance

Magna Tile is the original magnetic tile set and has been used for longer by a wider audience, so it carries a slight edge in the durability and performance category. However, NeoPuzzle and MagSnaps are both very durable and hold up well to extended use and play.

Creative Opportunities

All three brands offer an equal amount of creative opportunities. NeoPuzzle does carry a 155 piece set which offers more shapes than the other two brands in comparison.

Use with Other Brands

All of the magnetic tile brands play well together and can connect to each other. This is great news when building a larger set, knowing that no matter which brand you choose it can connect with any other magnetic tile set. Mixing and matching magnetic tile sets can also open more creative avenues!

Price Point

While magnetic tile sets are very popular, they can also be very pricey. All three brands fall in approximately the same $100 - $200 price range depending on the size of the set you purchase, but NeoPuzzle comes out on top when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck, coming in slightly cheaper than the other two brands.

Magnetic tile sets and magnetic play can give your child an abundance of creative opportunities while allowing them to build their fine motor and problem-solving skills. These magnetic tile sets also feed well into classroom and therapeutic learning environments as manipulative for STEM learning or focal objects for sensory therapy. While they may not be the cheapest toy on the market, they have an unlimited amount of uses and applications and they are a toy that will grow with your child and be used for years to come.

Kidzinc was one of the first stores in Australia to sell Magna Tiles and offers all three of the discussed brands of magnetic tiles, along with a couple of other options. Take a look and order your set today!

Kidzinc is dedicated to the development of young minds, and assisting you to develop your kids to their fullest potential, through books, toys, games, puzzles and interactive play! Our purpose is to provide you with the best educational and developmental products, sourced from all corners of the world. 

Posted in magnetic tiles, magnetic tiles australia

Building STEM Skills with Playmags Magnetic Tiles

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Lubica Misevski

 Playmags Magnetic Tiles Building Construction Toy | Kidzinc Australia | Online Educational Toys

 

Playing with blocks is a time-honoured tradition of childhood experiences. Most of us have memories of construction toys like Meccano and good old fashioned wooden blocks to build with. For centuries, long before early childhood development studies, parents have understood that building projects are an important foundation to logical thinking in young children. Through experimentation, they discover the laws of gravity, structure, architecture, and aesthetics. This creates a depth of knowledge and understanding that could never be achieved through explanations at such a young age.

While your old block sets are still a great way to bond with your child, there are new developments in early childhood learning through toys specifically designed to enhance building logical abilities from a very young age.

The new Playmags line of magnetic building toys combines the mosaic quality of coloured tiles, the building insights of blocks, and the scientific marvel of magnets into one amazingly educational package

What are Playmags?

Playmags are coloured building tiles, about two inches square with magnets along the corners and sides. This allows children to lock them together and easily pull them apart, encouraging infinite combinations. Each tile can link on all sides, creating lines, then mosaics, and finally stacked into increasingly complex buildings. While many of the tiles are square, Playmags has many construction shapes like long and short triangles, windows, cart, door, and fence pieces, allowing your child to get truly creative with their building projects. 

Encouraging Motor Skills

Every action your young child takes is practice for future skilled motor movement. Playmags are big enough to hold easily but complex enough to encourage detailed manipulation. When your child builds things with Playmags, they grasp, pull, set together, stack, and constantly re-arrange the pieces in order to create project after project of colourful and detailed houses, castles, inspiring colourful sky scrapers.

Imaginative and Creative Play

Playmag constructions are as easy to take apart as they are to build, but still resistant to the upsetting 'tumble' of classic wooden blocks. When your child is constantly rebuilding their Playmags projects, they are actively imagining new designs and ways to use each piece in a creative new way. As your child stretches their imagination, more toys will be pulled into the play and the buildings they create will become stages for the incredible adventures of cars, dolls, and action figures.

Math, Geometry, and Science

Every shape has a mathematical truth inherent to it that can be learned at any age. Squares can only have four partners, except when they are part of a cube or connected to other shapes with smaller sides. Triangles can have three partners and can come together to form pyramids if they are all the same height. Combining triangles of different sizes and angles create unique shapes and introduce the concept of mosaics, pictures made with geometric tiles. Without realizing it, your child will gain a deep basic knowledge of the wonders of math, geometry, and science long before their first day of school.

Learning STEM Skills

As your child builds with Playmags, they are gaining a vital understanding of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills, which often come together because the STEM concepts are so closely linked. Through geometry and construction, they learn about math and engineering, while the interplay of architecture and magnets teaches science and technology. This elegant culmination of learning opportunities happens without a teacher or a single word of explanation. The child learns on their own because it's fun, never realizing the amazing educational boost they're getting from early childhood toys.

Playmags are the culmination of generations of early childhood development toys designed specifically to help children learn about fundamentals years before they are ready to learn through long form lessons. Your children will play for hours creatively building and rearranging the colourful magnetic tiles into more and more complex constructions. After a few weeks, you'll be amazed to discover incredible new ways colourful squares and triangles can be combined into complex architectural wonders, all before they start kindergarten. With Playmags, anything is possible.

 For our full range of Playmags, please click here. 

Posted in magna tiles australia, magnetic tiles australia, STEM toys, STEM Toys Australia

Playmags vs. Magna Tiles vs. Neopuzzle vs Magformers TileBlox: Which One is Best for Your Child?

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Lubica Misevski

Magnetic building tiles are an excellent STEM toy, which encourages creativity in your child, allowing them to build amazing creations. When it comes time to choose the brand that will work best for them, you want to be sure that you're getting the right one.

If you are trying to decide between Playmags vs. Magna Tiles vs. Neopuzzle vs. Magformers TileBlox? We have put together a simple comparison to understand below.

Durability and Performance

When it comes to durability and performance, Magformers TileBlox and Magna Tiles hold up well. They're designed to take heavy use and keep on ticking. In fact, all four of these great products will allow for many hours of creative play in your home. 

They are tough little toys and, as a bonus, they're a building toy that won't get sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. They are also a little larger than many of the building blocks on the market for older kids. So vital pieces will be less likely to go missing at the wrong moment. As a bonus, they all stick to one another for easier clean-up and organisation. 

They can handle being stacked high, smashed down, and played with on a regular basis. This is great! Because when you bring these toys into your home, you will discover that your kids can't wait to play with them, build them up, and then knock them down and start all over again.

In comparing Playmags vs. Magna-tiles vs. Neopuzzle vs Magformers TileBlox, they are close in durability and performance, although Neopuzzle is a lower price. Making them a better deal for your money but the quality isn't as good. But we like the Magformers TileBlox as they are STEM.org certified or Magna-Tiles the original magnetic construction toy. 

Creative Opportunities

Magformers TileBlox, Playmags, Neopuzzles, and Magna Tiles offer a wide range of creative opportunities. If your child can imagine it, they can find a way to build it with these great toys!

If you're looking for a toy that offers a wider creative range, Neopuzzle offers a larger variety of pieces than Magna-Tiles. Including wheels, windows, and car bases in the 155 Piece Set. *** Updated: Since reviewing these magnetic tiles, Magna-Tiles has launched many new shapes and sets, which wins hands down the creative side of magnetic play. ***

Encouraging your children to engage in even more creative play. When you want truly limitless building opportunities, Magna-Tiles offers a better opportunity. From constructing houses with windows to creative vehicles. Magna-Tiles has a wider range of pieces that offer more creative fun.

Connecting to Other Brands

Magformers TileBlox, Playmags, and Neopuzzle magnetic tiles are designed to connect well with other brands of magnetic tiles. Including Magna Tiles. That means that if you want to add to your child's set, you don't have to worry about choosing the brand they already have! The versatile pieces easily connect. Even if you mix and match brands, allowing them full creative freedom.

Comparing Playmags vs. Magna Tiles vs. Neopuzzle vs. Magformers TileBlox Tiles for Shapes and Freedom

Playmags, Magna Tiles, Magformers TileBlox, and Neopuzzle offer a broad range of shapes that will allow your child the freedom to design amazing creations. They have varying sizes of rectangles and squares and different shapes of triangles. All designed to fit together in your child's custom creation. Although Playmags and Neopuzzle have a wider variety of options. Allowing for a greater range of creative exploration. 

Whether these are a quiet time toy on a rainy-day or simply an addition to your child's creative toy box. Magnetic building tiles of either four of these brands offer a wide range of creative benefits.

If you're looking for a magnetic building set and can’t decide between Playmags vs. Magna tiles vs. Neopuzzle vs. Magformers TileBlox you can't go wrong with the Magformers TileBlox of Magnetic tiles of these brands. As they are the leading brand on the market for magnetic construction toys. All sets will offer hours of entertainment for your child. While encouraging them to increase their spatial understanding, their interaction with geometry, and more. 

Magnetic building tiles are amazing toys! That will be sure to capture your kids' attention and encourage them to engage in creative play.

When it comes down to a direct comparison of Playmags vs. Magna Tiles vs. Neopuzzle, vs. Magformers TileBlox the Magna-Tiles or TileBlox clearly wins out as the superior toy as they are STEM.org and the brand has been around for a long time developing magnetic construction toys.  Bring them home for your child today and watch them light up while engaging in creative play that's sure to last for hours. 

There are other magnetic tiles on the market now in Australia such as Connetix Tiles, Kmart Tiles and Kidstuff Magnetika but in our opinion are an inferior copy of the original MagnaTiles and Magformers.  The latter two brands are well respected in the magnetic tile toy industry and are leaders in the field. 

Please consider the safety of the magnet when choosing a magnetic tile for your child. Only chose from reputable companies that have invested countless hours in the design and manfacturing of their product i.e Magna Tiles or Magformers. 

Our full range of Magnetic Tiles can be found here. 

Posted in award winning toys, buy magna-tiles australia, buy magnatiles australia, buy playmags australia, magna tiles australia, magnetic tiles australia, Neopuzzle magnetic tiles Australia, playmags australia, playmags review, STEM Education, STEM Toys

 

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