Fun Activities Using Magnetic Tiles

May 16, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

My daughter was obsessed with magnetic tiles when she was younger. We probably had three or four sets and she could make balls and other shapes from the design books from memory. She would use them with animals and other figures to tell stories, but mostly she just had fun building things (and destroying them!) with these fun and colorful tiles.

If you’ve got a kiddo in the phase, or have some of these magnet blocks in your classroom, here are some fun extension activities to get you beyond the book that came in the box.

Making Danish has a great list of simple activities you can do with these blocks, including making repeating patterns, building a maze and using them for color sorting of other objects.

Happy Toddler Playtime’s list of activities to do with magnetic tiles is aimed at preschoolers and has lots of fun ideas like building ramps, making a marble run, making a snakes and ladders style board game and more. Many of these ideas are collected from other websites and the Connetix Tiles Instagram account. (Connetix is one brand of magnetic tiles you might find if you’re shopping for them.)

And then there’s this list of building ideas from Adventure in a Box. This collection includes 2D and 3D designs for everything from letters and numbers to 3D animals, seasonal designs and more. They sell printable cards with these ideas on them that show you how to build them (the set for 2D designs, for example, is linked here) but even just scrolling through the blog post should give you and your kids plenty of ideas for things they want to try to build.

Do you have (or have you had) a kid who was really into magnet tiles? I’d love to hear about their favorite things to make!

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Reflecting on the Past Year with Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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