Magnetic Tiles for Kids

If you're a parent or teacher, you'll know that most children love magnets, building sets and colorful things. If you want the perfect toy that combines all these features into one, you'll find that in magnetic tiles for kids!

Educational toys are the best kind because they challenge your kid mentally and sometimes physically. That doesn't mean they're not fun! Kids may not realize it, but when they build things and create new structures, they are developing their fine motor skills, learning to use their imagination and learning about geometry and even spacial reasoning.

An open-ended toy, like a set of colorful magnetic building tiles, challenges a child to use her imagination to conjure up all kinds of structures. The simple geometric pieces are easy to hold and the magnets ensure the structure remains stable. After all, why limit a kid's magnet play to your refrigerator? A building tile set just ticks all the right boxes for kids looking for fun and parents looking for an educational toy.

My favorite set is also a bestseller.

Yes, this Magna-Tiles 100 piece set is a bit pricey, but the sheer variety and volume of pieces included means that it will be a your child's favorite for quite a few years. He can start small with just a few pieces, but he'll be able to create ever more complicated structures as he gets older.

Plus, when he has his friends over, they won't fight over who gets how many pieces just because there are enough for everyone!

I love that the pieces are sized just right for small hands and that they look almost like stained glass.

The set includes 4 large squares, 11 right angled triangles, 50 small squares, 15 isosceles triangles and 20 equilateral triangles. Every edge has magnets built in so every piece can be attached to any other piece. The tiles are unbreakable and translucent, so children can see through to the characters that they place inside the structures they build.

You may be tempted to buy a small magnetic tile building set, but I prefer these large ones because when my daughter started playing with them at the age of 3, I gave her just a few of the largest pieces to play with. Her motor skills could handle them well and she could make simple 2D patterns with my help.

Once she got older and more dexterous, I gave her some of the smaller pieces too and she was able to start small 3D models. She's still playing with her toy and showing no signs of getting tired with it! The large number and variety of pieces help her create new structures all the time.

Your set will come with ideas and instructions to make specific models and structures. You'll see that a child can make castles, sets of animals, towers, race tracks and even spaceships!

The Magna-Tiles clear color 100 piece set is great, but it is also a bit pricey. While it is the most popular of all magnetic tile sets, there are other slightly cheaper options and you don't have to settle for a smaller set!

This one is almost identical to the Magna-Tiles one but cheaper. Why is this? Well, some customers say that the magnets in this set are a bit weaker than on Magna-Tiles. I would say, if you don't want to spend too much on a magnetic building tile set, this is the next best option.

100 pieces not good enough? In addition to the basic squares and triangles present in the 100 piece set, this set also has a 12 by 12" platform, 16 wheels, and two additional colors.

The box comes with a project guide that's filled with lots of design ideas.

There's a new player in town! From initial reviews, it looks like Playmags could give Magna-Tiles a run for its money. The magnets are just as strong and the pieces are the same, but this set is a bit cheaper.

There's a lot of variety in this clear-colored set by Magnetic Stick N Stack. You'll get 100 magnetic tiles, some of which are designed as doors or windows, and 12 wheels.

This 62 piece designer set from Magformers is also a pricey option, yet those who bought it swear by this brand. It even won a 2012 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio award.

The magnets are the strongest of all the magnetic set brands and there's even more creative options with the shapes available.

This designer set includes 20 equilateral triangles, 14 isosceles triangles, 22 squares, 4 diamonds and 2 trapezoids and you can buy many other sets to add to this one for the kids to keep creating bigger and better models. Other top suggestions are the 112 piece Challenger set that includes hexagons, pentagons and wheels.

If you're on a limited budget but still want a big enough set of tiles for your child, a set with 40 to 60 pieces is pretty good. While you won't be able to build elaborate castles or very high towers, a play house or double-decker bus is definitely doable!

There are even smaller sets available. A set with 30-40 pieces can make up any short fall if the first big set is missing pieces.

Ask her to ...

• Create any 2D shapes.

• Create enclosed 3D shapes.

• Stack similar shapes to make stable towers. This task helps develop her fine motor skills.

• Match shapes to learn about geometry.

• Use a few shapes to make a symmetrical geometry shape. For example, making a pentagon.

• Put different shapes together to observe the angles that they make.

• Cover small shapes with larger ones.

Any of these sets would make terrific gifts for other kids and you won't have to break the bank either!

When my daughter was about 3 years old, she only played with a few pieces at a time. This 32 piece Magna Tiles set is just right at that age. It includes 2 large squares, 14 small squares, 4 right triangles, 4 isosceles triangles and 8 equilateral triangles.

This medium Metro Mags Clear Colors set includes 60 translucent squares and triangles of various sizes.

There's no shortage of variety here! In addition to the basic solid-colored triangles and squares, this 48 Piece DX Set also includes a wheeled base that would be ideal for a vehicle, a magnetic door, and other shapes with curves or holes to build more creative scenes.

This Picasso Tiles set is of great value. The 60 pieces include 4 large squares, 24 small ones, and 32 small, medium and tall triangles. They are all clear colored.

• To encourage creativity
• Kids don't outgrow them
• They help develop fine motor skills
• They help kids with shapes and pattern recognition
• Help develop problem solving, spacial recognition, math and logic skills
• Safe and durable

So what sets magnetic tiles apart from other building kits for kids?

One feature is that the pieces are in different shapes and sizes. You get large and small squares, isosceles triangles, equatorial triangles and right angled triangles as the basic shapes, which allows children to build almost any 2D or 3D structure.

Each piece has a long magnet built into the edges, so any piece can attach to any other piece, thereby letting kids figure out their own patterns to make using either all or just a few of the pieces in the set.

A kid's fine motor skills are developed and she'll naturally learn the basics of spacial reasoning and geometry.