Magna Tiles

It doesn't happen often for the two and three year olds to catch on the same interest and stick to it for weeks or even months. It was the case with the magna-tiles in Spring 2017 from February to May to be exact. It was wonderful to see children working together, sharing, and engaging in imaginative play together!

The photos illustrate the work, creativity and joy children experienced during the busy magna-tiles unit.

One of the problems children encounter was running out of small squares while building, above is Isla putting together two small triangles to make a square! What valuable lesson it was.

Declan enjoyed building big and tall structures 

We added photographs from the book GREAT BUILDINGS OF THE WORLD to the area as an inspiration. Some children studied the pictures and copy the design or parts of the designs  from the book.

But the most popular design and play theme within the magna-tiles unit were spaceships! Children started with simple design of connecting three long triangles together as sides and used small triangle as a base. With time and practice the spaceships expanded to more complex designs and required more pieces. 

Anthony was the classroom's expert on magna-tiles and children often asked him for help and advice.

Children used their spaceships to transport smaller toys, such as fruit and cars.

Angela made cool outer-space felt mat for children to expand their play with their rockets, we also read books about astronauts and the moon during that time.

The best part for me during this study was to witness the team work. Children shared the labor and worked together creating buildings, towers, and spaceships among other creations. They taught each other how to make specific designs, provided advice and encouraged one another when working on challenging creations.

Children also loved making boxes and filling them up with little toys.

 Winter filled her cube with aliens. 

 Sam made a box for his boat.

Isla called her boxes PRESENTS.

 Scarlett's castle

 Landon's boat

The magna-tiles unit was great for creativity, problem solving, learning about shapes and patterns, magnetic force, helped develop fine-motor skills, allowed  imaginative play,  as well as promoted the language development.