The heavy rain drops are beating on our windows. The water is falling from the sky by the buckets, leaving us little to no chance of hitting the playground today. I am at home with all four kids. One is growing more restless than the other, it slowly spreads throughout the house like the plague. The expression “climbing the walls” must have been uttered for the first time by a mother of four boys with cabin fever. Today is a perfect day for tinkering. We will take the time to tinker and it will be fun! (K’Nex sent us these awesome sets, but the opinions are mine.)
K’NEX recently sent me the Tinkertoy Wild Wheels Building Set
The kids sit in anticipation of the boxes opening. They are excited to try these new toys, as any child would be. I quietly say a prayer, hoping that the awesome toys will calm the “ants in their pants.”
The two sets were perfect for the individual age groups. The free play, let-the-imagination-run-wild options with the Tinker Toys truly were a great match for Jonah and Jansen. We built sail boats and went on the open sea for an adventure. We constructed cars and took a drive to see wild animals. The pieces were eventually turned into swords and light sabers, because… yes – boys! We talked colors, we counted pieces, followed the suggested directions and we sure spent a lot of time not following any instructions.
Meanwhile the two older boys were busy with their BIG box of K’NEX Combat Crew. This particular set is a 5 in 1, which is always an added bonus. Jacob and Jordan are a great team – they always work together on builds. Jacob, as the typical big brother is the supervisor and takes on the larger bits of the project. Jordan is a great little brother, he opens bags, takes direction and builds the smaller parts. They are really an awesome team and I love standing back watching their interaction.
They both have a lot of building experience, but this was their first big K’NEX set. At first they were a little overwhelmed with the instructions. Each step had several sub-steps. But Construction Supervisor Jacob oversaw the build and not a step was missed. They did have to retrace their steps a few times, but nothing that was beyond repair. This set was a great challenge and a wonderful learning experience for both of them.
We spent the rest of the afternoon constructing, building and having fun just tinkering. Some days all we really need is to take a step back, shut off the technology and remove all the screens. Free play is not only crucial for a child’s development, but also for a mother’s sanity. Letting the kids play on their own without being micro-managed is healthy and exactly what this day called for.
I am SUPER excited to offer one of my lucky readers a chance to have a tinkering-filled day like we did.
This giveaway is sponsored by K’NEX. Enter here to win the same two sets we so thoroughly enjoyed on our rainy day inside.
These sets were so awesome and gave us hours of tinkering-fun! I highly recommend them for little kids who love to build, create and are fascinated by STEM activities.
Tinkertoy Wild Wheels Building Set
K’NEX Combat Crew 5-in-1 Building Set
Learning through play, the Danish way http://mamainthenow.com/2015/09/learning-through-play/ really hit home for me. I have been feeling bad lately about the amount of time my children spend with electronic devices and so starting tomorrow we are going to go out and play much more and play much more.
enjoy your special time with the little ones – but don’t beat yourself up about all the other stuff! 🙂
The parenting post that hit home with me was the Learning Through Play, the Danish Way post. I believe children should be allowed to have unstructured play time so there is no pressure and they can use their imaginations and creativity.
I completely agree – I, personally would love more time to play too.
I like your post on organizing because I’m so trying to live this out right now! We just finished a major construction project in our basement and we are in the process (well, mostly ME… hubs is no help :)) of trying to get everything put back somewhere and sorted through. It’s so overwhelming!! I feel like I have no clue where to even start haha. Plus with small kids, the second they touch a room it’s a disaster zone so the rest of the house is making me crazy too :). I love your review of the K’NEX too. Honestly, I haven’t really looked into these for my kids but they have really improved since I was a child! We are really into LEGOs, but this looks like something they would really enjoy and be able to get a lot more creative with :). Thanks for the giveaway–fingers crossed!
Learning Through Play the Danish Way really hit home. We pulled our gifted child from Kindergarten last year, she was overworked and over-scheduled merely by BEING in school. By the time she got home on the bus she was exhausted and by the time homework was done it was time to eat and go to bed– no play ALL week! We discovered that she would end up on the bus a total hour MORE the next year due to bus schedules with the district and we decided we were done. We’re a couple of months shy of a year now homeschooling and my child (along with her siblings) spend the majority of their day in free play. They love legos, goldie blox and toys similar to tinkering, so this would be a fantastic win for our entire crew (soon to be 4 kids strong!)