Toy/gizmos for 3yo who enjoys taking apart things?

[bakpak]

My DD has always fascinated with taking things like mechanical pencils, 4-color pens, and noisemakers apart on her own & rebuilding them with little to no help for the past year and I'd like to encourage it, however I've not been able to think of things to get. She has good fine motor skills (writes very well), worked her way up to 50-piece puzzles at 2.5 then moved to other pursuits, & mazes. She's less into architecture-type toys, like legos, than obviously practical things like train tracks. She likes legos/blocks, but seems limited by her imagination. She enjoys recreating patterns, like with Wedgits or magnets. For example, around 2.25yo she could take a mechanical pencil apart and put it back together, and even figured out how to hold down the top and insert the lead back up through the bottom hole!

 

Funny enough, she just started asking 'why' questions, but has been asking 'Mommy, how does this work?' questions for about 8 months. :)

 

So, anyone else have kids with this kind of bent? I was wondering about 3-D puzzles, but wasn't sure if they made any you can do more than once. Or maybe it's my job to make examples for her to recreate if she wants without expecting her to be creative on her own? She has a simple wooden workbench, but it's functionality is limited. She got a take-apart plane for her bday, but is less into it than I expected.

 

Thoughts? As you know, sometimes these things are tricky with little ones trying to do things more suited to older kids...

[Crimson Wife]

My DS is like that, and he absolutely loves Zoobs. Rumor has it that this car designer kitmay just wind up under our tree this year.

[Momling]

I'd be really tempted by this cool engineering toy aimed at girls: http://www.goldieblox.com/products/goldieblox-and-the-spinning-machine

I think you can pre-order now for April.