Building toys

[Staceyshoe]

I'm looking for some great building toys that my kids won't outgrow for years and years but that they can play with now. Any ideas? I was eyeing Keva blocks. What do you think? Anything else I should be looking at?

[Farrar]

We have Kapla blocks, which are pretty much the same as the Kevas (don't know which came first or who's copying who). They're expensive (I think we talked a grandparent into getting a huge box of them as a big central xmas gift one year). It's a great thing to have and we love them. The kids go through phases of playing with them a lot and then other phases of forgetting about them.

 

Also, of course, the ubiquitous Legos. They never outgrow those. Some adults are still playing with them, you know.

[ChristineW]

A less expensive alternative to Keva blocks are Citiblocs. Same design but softer wood. I purchased mine this summer when Toys R Us had them on clearance but I've heard Costco has a set of 300 for $24.49 right now

[Guest]

Hugely expensive but made to last for generations are the German Anchor Stones. We could never afford them, but I coveted them for at least a decade.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

 

Regular ol' wooden blocks are the most played with toy I have ever bought. Nothing else is even in the running compared to them, and we have a 1000 piece bin of Citiblocs (similar to Keva Planks). They have been played with every single day for the more than 3 years that we've had them. I still add booster sets to our now huge collection.

[ChristusG]

My girls love the Fisher Price Trio blocks. They stay together really well.

[justasque]

I agree with all the pp's.

 

Unit blocks are great; even better if you can get some of the "special" blocks (like the sort of Y arch-y one). These had a long life in our house. Boys and girls both played with these.

 

Legos had the longest life, going well into the teen years for my ds.

 

Kapla blocks come out now and again. Ikea had them for a great price some years back and we got a bazillion.

 

K'nex is fun, though less so than some of the others.

 

We've also had bristle blocks, erector sets, gears of various kinds, paper models, tinker toys, wooden trains, Primo and Duplo lego, and so on. Playmobil is more playing and less building.

 

Yard sales and thrift shops are your friend. Our favorite find was a huge set of Quadro for $8. Now *that's* a building toy!

[dhudson]

Love, love love, Keva planks. My son (who was 11) got them for Cmas and they are played with regularly. It's amazing what my son and his friends build with them. He was not excited about them at first but as his Dad and I started playing with them he was intrigued and hasn't stopped playing with them since. This is a kid that is enthralled with electronics of any kind so I wanted something that would help him get away from a screen. It does the trick.

 

We bought the one that could do marble runs and it is great!

[Kirch]

Our children's museum here has tons of Keva Blocks, and both of my boys (well, me and dh too, honestly!) could sit for hours and build with them easily. Definitely a good choice, imo.

[katilac]

My dds love Keva/Kapla blocks; definitely their most played with building toy. I just bought them a box of Citiblocs to expand their collection, but they say they aren't up to par at all with the others (don't balance as well, don't have the same 'feel,' etc). And they aren't building toy connesoirs by any means. They will play with them, but only separately - - no mixing in with the others, lol, which was kind of my point in buying them.

[scrappyhappymama]

Hugely expensive but made to last for generations are the German Anchor Stones. We could never afford them, but I coveted them for at least a decade.

 

Wow, those are really cool! We'd never pay that either, but now I know to snatch them up if I ever see them at a yard/estate sale! :001_smile:

[RegGuheert]

We prefer Fischertechnik. We like these toys because they allow the children to build toys that work just like real devices. For instance, if you build a Fischertechnik car, it can have rack & pinion steering and a real differential gear in the rear. A tower crane will be built with trusses and uses a drum spool to move the cable, just like a real one. Some robotics engineers use these kits to build their testbeds.

 

When our oldest were little we often had difficulty finding the kits for Christmas each year. Now they have them at Amazon, so I guess it's not a big deal.