Blocks

I have 2.5 year old boy/girl twins and a 10 month old baby girl. I want to get my kids either MegaBlocks or Duplo blocks. Which are your favorite and why? I imagine that we will get the smaller Legos some day but I think they would be a choking hazard for the baby right now.

Also, in another post I read about wood blocks, Lincoln Logs, and Tinker Toys. Out of these 3 which is your favorite for your kids and why? I don't think we have the space to have more than one of them.


Thanks!

 

Not Mega Blocks. We got one set as a gift and they are horrid. They don't stay together and the kids get so frustrated.

We have loads of Duplos and they are awesome, the kids really like them. We even got one of the Cars 2 sets!

 

We have a huge crate of Duplo and they are a constant favourite, even with visiting kids a couple of years older, so I think the investment is worthwhile.

We also have basic wooden blocks which get a lot of use, not just for building, but for sorting according to colours and shapes, using as food for the play kitchen, as a phone, for building fences for their farm animals etc. Again, this is a toy that lasts a long time.

 

My kids enjoy Mega Blocks, it's the only kind we've had. We have not tried Duplo Blocks. Even though we do not own our own set of tinker toys or Lincoln logs...my kids enjoy playing with both when they get the chance. Good luck shopping!

 

We have both and they get played with daily. Nothing is wrong with either.

 

My kids have Lincoln Logs and they haven't been really popular with them. Duplos are a huge hit a daycare, so I would suggest those.

 

I just bought a second set of Tinkertoys for my guys yesterday (I got a root canal in the afternoon, and wanted them distracted that evening ). They got the Junior set for their birthday, but I got the 102-piece set to add to it. We played for almost 1.5 hours last night, making everything under the sun! It was a nice distraction for me too! :lol:

Traditional wooden blocks were fun last year because we learned our letters and numbers with them, and the boys could practice stacking. Now they don't really play with them. ardon:

Unfortunately the MegaBlocks we have just end up getting thrown.

 

My girls love their mega blocks (no problems with them staying together), and their giant cardboard melissa and doug blocks, and their basic wooden blocks that are all different shapes, and cardboard boxes that we tape up to be blocks. Actually if you give my kids ANY blocks they will be used. We love them around here!

ETA: Picture of a castle my girls made last night out of their wood blocks: View attachment 6475

 

Love the duplos for lego type blocks. We also love the cardboard fake bricks. We have 2-3 sets of them and my older son builds walls/towers with them while the babies get to knock them over. My older son also makes car garages for his trucks/vehicles out of them (at least he used to). The older one loves legos and so far we just keep them in a separate room from the babies.

 

MAGNA TILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Worth their weight in gold!

 

Gosh you guys make me want to buy some tinkertoys (been eyeing magna tiles for a while), but all I can think of is more pieces on the floor...

 

Yeah, it's kind of a nightmare to keep up with, especially when it devolves into "crashing". <_< I've instituted a "living room only" policy for them, so at least they're contained to one area. If they violate that, the Tinkertoys get taken away. I'm also anal retentive, so I have to count them before I put them away! :80:

 

Mine had a set of Megablocks and Duplos, and they liked the Megablocks better. But honestly, they like the good old fashioned plain blocks the best. These are the ones we have: Melissa and Doug wood blocks.

And out of the others, I would definitely vote for Tinkertoys. My two actually play together with these often. And, they are a hit when friends come over, even at 6 years old! I guess not many kids have them? (We have an old set that is all wood, no plastic.) I read a quote once in a book that said the best toys are 10% toy/90% child. All of these toys are great because the kids get to use their imagination to create some really cool things. (Although be warned, Tinkertoys can also be used as weapons! :lol: ).

 

We've had this huge set of megablocks ever since our oldest was a little guy and they have gotten hours and hours and hours of use out of them! Even now I'll find all 4 kids in the twins bedroom building towers and houses with them I don't think you can go wrong with megablocks.

However, they take up a HUGE amt of space. I'm ready to downgrade to duplo's, and we've bought a couple of sets for the twins already, but they are scattered all over the house!! I can't keep up with them! So until they get a bit better about playing with them and then putting them back in the container, we're going to stick with the megablocks as our main block.

We have tinkertoys too, plastic ones, but they are so hard to get together and take apart. Anyone else have this problem?? My oldest can do it, but even Kaelyn needs help and she's about to turn 5 in september. The twins absolutely can't build with them yet. Maybe they've improved them, we've had these for about 6 yrs or so.

 

I have both duplo and tinkertoys. They love them both. I don't think you could go wrong with either of those.

I should mention that we got the wooden tinker toys. The sticks are wooden and will break if they do not know how to take them apart right. I would suggest the plastic ones. The sticks are plastic while mostly everything else is wooden.

 

Duplos are fantastic... and you can get them at a serious discount on eBuy (rather than brand new). Tinkertoys and Magna Tiles are also wonderful - you can't go wrong with either (or anything you've listed really... except Lincoln Logs would probably be a bit hard for 2.5 year olds).

 

Aren't they just the coolest?! I saw those for the first time a couple of months ago at my kid's daycare, and I knew then that I had to get them a set. They are expensive (around $100 for 100 pieces) but the boys had some leftover birthday money so I bought them a set. And I really like playing with the tiles too which is a bonus I make 3D cubes and pyramids out of the tiles, and then the boys smash them and think its hilarious, LOL.

I've not heard of Duplo blocks. I'll have to check those out.