Fun Activities Using Magnetic Tiles

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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Black History Month Activities for Kids

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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