Advantages of magnetic tiles and why are they useful for children?
Our magnetic tile sets have quickly gained a lot of popularity, and we're not surprised. Children love to explore and play with them. Since they are so useful for children, we want to introduce a little bit about all their good qualities and how you can create exciting and fun challenges for your children to play with them.
What are magnetic tiles?
MNTL magnetic tiles are an open ended play for all children. Not only do they offer endless play opportunities, they encourage children to develop key skills. Kids need to be kids, and play plays a big part in that. Play, especially open-ended play, allows children to understand the world around them and ultimately build the skills they need to learn for the future.
In early childhood, the brain develops rapidly. Children between the ages of 0 and 5 learn vital skills that can have a significant impact on the social, emotional, physical and cognitive aspects of their lives as they grow up and become adults. The game is meaningful, interesting, engaging, socially interactive and fluid. This means that children can grow and develop at their own pace and without limits. Magnetic blocks are great for kids or even adults.
The magnets inside our magnetic blocks are strong, allowing your kids to build tall structures and buildings that won't collapse easily. The manufacturing process for MNTL magnetic blocks involves ultrasonic welding and the insertion of rivets that securely attach the magnets inside the magnetic plates. The internal structure also increases the stability of the magnetic plates and reduces the possibility of breakage. New premium food-quality ABS plastic is used in the production of the products. No additives have been added. New larger magnets and copper fasteners are in use. Advantages of copper - it does not rust and a more stable connection. The tiles with MNTL's patented star-shaped design look beautiful, and the 16-part plane reduces the formation of scratches on the blocks.
Why are magnetic blocks useful for your children?
Before buying a toy for your child, you want to make sure that it is not only something they will enjoy, but also something that will encourage their development and provide a learning experience. Magnetic blocks promote the following skills:
STEAM skills
Magnetic tiles are the perfect STEAM concept for kids. STEAM is the integration of five key subjects – science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. Its main idea in early childhood is to encourage children to be curious, ask questions, think creatively, collaborate and solve problems. The use of magnetic blocks allows children to move on different levels of play. They can practice skills like building a simple ball run structure while exploring the scientific concepts of gravity. Then use your engineering skills and try to add extra tiles to make it taller or faster, then review why the structure collapsed and try again. This process not only builds resilience, but also leads to problem solving and critical thinking skills. Children can also use the magnetic blocks to spark curiosity and ask questions, such as what happens when we mix red and blue or blue and yellow? Experimentation is also a skill that can be developed using magnetic blocks. For example – building three ramps of different sizes and investigating why the car goes down the steeper ramp faster. This allows children to ask relevant questions and find answers to them. The core process of STEAM learning.
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Hand-eye coordination
This is a difficult skill that young children sometimes struggle with. It is the simultaneous use of hands and eyes. These skills are especially important for everyday tasks such as writing, buttoning a shirt, tying shoelaces, or pouring water into a cup. Building with magnetic blocks can improve hand-eye coordination. When a child picks up a tile and connects it to another tile, they begin to understand the connection between their eyes and their hands. Allowing children to easily connect and disconnect the tiles can start to develop these skills and they can progress to more complex hand-eye coordination, such as placing that top tile on a tall structure without knocking it over. Putting the ball in a ball run can also develop hand-eye coordination.
Fine and gross motor skills
Building with magnetic tiles can stimulate the development of gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor development is the large body movements required for physical skills such as running and jumping. Magnetic blocks are an obstacle course to practice gross motor skills like stepping over objects, or building a wall and throwing a bag over it to watch it fall. Fine motor skills are precise movements using the smaller muscles of the hands and fingers. There are endless opportunities to develop these skills
An imaginative and creative game
Magnetic tiles give children a great opportunity to use their imagination and be creative. Imaginative play allows children to understand both the world around them and themselves. It develops language and social skills as a role play for children and helps them self-regulate their emotions. They can express their likes and dislikes, like building a rocket for a space kid or a castle or an ice cream stand for a dragon kid, because what kid doesn't like ice cream? The possibilities for imaginative play with magnetic tiles are endless. You can further expand the imagination by using a book game, for example, making a fish or a car out of tiles based on a picture from a book.
Literacy and numeracy
These specific skills form the basis of learning in school. Magnetic tiles offer an ideal opportunity to develop literacy and numeracy skills in early childhood. Magnetic tiles can be used to construct numbers or patterns and identify shapes. Another activity is understanding positional math by asking children to place an object inside, behind, next to, in front of a tile box. There are endless ways to develop literacy skills, such as using a chalkboard marker to write the alphabet on the tiles and then arranging them, or placing each object that starts with a letter in a box of blocks. Children need ways to connect their skills, and magnetic blocks allow them to do just that. By playing, they can learn scientific concepts, foster curiosity, creativity and imagination.
A toy for children of all ages
Another advantage of magnetic tiles is that they are fundamentally cost-effective in the long run, as they can be enjoyed at all stages of development. As children grow, magnetic block games can be constantly reinvented and become more complex. Playing with magnetic blocks develops over time - this is the best of open-ended toys. How a three-year-old plays with them is very different from how a five-year-old would. They encourage children to create and explore the world around them and encourage independence and focus.
With MNTL Magnetic Blocks, the possibilities for learning through play are virtually endless for the whole family.
Ways to improve playing with magnetic blocks
Magnetic tiles are a great toy to play on their own, but they're also great for combining with other toys and items you have around the house. Adding these items allows you to extend the learning experience and create fun play sessions that will keep your kids entertained for quite some time.
- Add loose parts like balls, bells
- Add animals or vehicles
- Use them in the book game
- Explore other magnetic surfaces such as garage doors, the refrigerator or a metal fence.
- Invite the children to build structures higher or make the ball runs more difficult
- Color - Match the objects to the colors of the tiles
- Use a whiteboard marker to write on the tiles
- Involve them in sensory play
- Create patterns using colors or shapes
- Build a ball track
Product selection
The magnetic tiles are available in both colorful and pastel shades and in several packs of different quantities. We also offer a ball track set in three different versions. In addition, there are large base plates. To make playing even more exciting, the new product offers additional bricks that are compatible with both magnetic blocks and Lego. It allows you to combine two popular games into one. In addition, our selection includes unique car tracks, 52-part and 108-part. Build a different race track each time and see how fast the race car reaches the finish line. All of our magnetic tile sets work together and are compatible with all major brands: Picasso Tiles, Connetix, Magna-Tiles and other tiles of the same size and magnet placement.
Greenback OÜ is the official representative and distributor of MNTL products in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.