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Magna-Tiles
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Baby and Children's Gifts and Toys
When I was nine, I got a toy printing press, with tweezers to set the rubber type. I disappeared into my room and embarked on a slow, arduous process to produce a sentence — which may be why I became a writer.
My brother, at eight, got a professional microscope and a rudimentary microtome. He also disappeared into his room. He’s now an MD-Ph.D. and he’s holding a patent that might bring us closer to a cure for AIDS than anything out there.
My point?
Children often grow up to be what they thought they were as children.
As parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends, it’s our job — one of our jobs — to bend that twig.
If you think the best way to help a child is by buying him another video game, I say: Please salute our future Air Force pilot.
Or if you’re buying a girl a Bratz doll, allow me to suggest you are building a future candidate for The Real Housewives of Orange County.
In our home, we’ve got an artist — just ask her.
It helps that we live just blocks from the largest art museum in America. And that, since earliest childhood, a Saturday trip to a museum or gallery has been imbedded in what passes for “normal” life around here. And — oh — that our daughter really likes to sit at her desk and make stuff. Which we praise, not because we’re keen on building ersatz self-esteem but because some of what she does is surprisingly clever.
Got a kid with an appetite like that? Feed it.
Our new tool is Magna-Tiles. We bought these plastic shapes as companions for Magnetix — as diversions at restaurants. But they quickly morphed into a crash course in elementary architecture. And the twig that’s being bent is academic as well as vocational; building in geometric shapes makes it more comfortable for a child when it’s time for geometry and calculus.
Two dimensions become three. Magic. That activity looks like random play, but it does something more: It exercises a kid’s imagination. And if you’re a pedant (like me), you get to pump in some random knowledge: “Did you know that the triangle is the strongest shape in the world?”
But all that’s way too lofty for the children aged 3-plus who are lucky enough to play with Magna-Tiles. Bottom line: They’re fun. Schools love for kids to play with them. So do the groups that give awards for the best toys. And — the ultimate test — kids love to play with them. Starting with ours.
John Adams, our second President, famously said, “I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.”
If only he could, Adams, I’m convinced, would give Magna-Tiles to his little ones.
To buy the Magna-Tiles 32-piece set from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the Magna-Tiles 48-piece set from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the Magna-Tiles 100-piece set from Amazon.com, click here.
