toys

People have long known that puzzles present many benefits for children as they develop. I read an article once about the three basics of what puzzles do for your child. When our child is alone with a puzzle, you can expect three basic skills to be built:

Physical skills- from holding puzzle pieces and turning them until they fit
Cognitive skills- as they solve the problem of a puzzle
Emotional skills- they learn patience and are rewarded when they complete the puzzle

There are many different types of puzzles sold in the market with different stages of difficulties with appealing picture/characters. I found that this magnetic puzzle book from Janod is really interesting and good to introduce it early. N can have fun creating different vehicles with this cleverly designed Janod-Magnetic Book.

How to play this game?

When we opened the box, there is a background of road, ocean and sky on the cover box to place the magnetic puzzles.

There are 2 compartments, left side of the compartment are 18 vehicle cards. On the right side of the compartment are all the magnetic pieces are placed.

Just select one of the 18 cards and then match the magnetic pieces to copy the card. This activity is good to build problem solving and skill building. Alternatively the child can be creative and mix and match to build your own super cool transport. They could even make a story or change the arrangement when they play which is not a repeating type of puzzle.

The 50 pieces magnetic puzzle and 18 cards all store away in the book when not in use. As everything are packed and played in the box, this toy is actually quite handy where we can bring it everywhere.

N has been a big fan of cars since he was small and today I am going to try to review one of his favorite toys that have been very close to him.

There are many brands of diecast cars out in the market but since the beginning our hearts always go for Takara Tomy Tomica, which is from Japan. I remember the first Takara Tomy toy that N got was the Shinkansen Train Rail Set, a gift from a friend of ours who lives in Perth. Since then, we started to pay attention about this brand and found out they have many choices of diecast cars including different types of play sets and car tracks.

We began collecting the diecast cars from one until I do not even know how many diecast cars N has up until now. N just loves to play with it and always brings as many cars as he can every time he goes out. The thing that I like about this toy is easy to carry, fits in the palm of a children’s hand and could be a helpful alternative for the kids to play, especially during the meal time. Instead of entertaining our children with the smartphone/tablet for video or games, I prefer letting N playing with the cars with different story I made depending of what cars model he brings.

Just bring 4-6 different types of cars then you all set. To make things more interesting you could make up a story by drawing some paths, roads or building on a piece of paper for the kids to play & explore with the cars.

As N grew older we started to present him more accessories from Takara Tomy Play set. In addition, N received Takara Tomy Carpark Elevator from his aunt on his 3^rd birthday.

The good things about this is actually you can buy the play sets or car track separately but in the end you could connect everything to make a very big town road set.

The kids can innovatively create their track design as they want with different shapes (Straight, Turn, Up, Down etc). The booklet instruction is in Japanese but do not worry to assemble the tracks is quite straight forward, there are some numbers or sign where you can actually connect it.

In my preference this toys can actually last longer for the kids to play and they can creatively built as they like when they grow up. Hunting for some limited type of diecast car model can also be exciting for some collectors.

Please note: due to small parts this toy is suitable for the kids above 3 years old.

Tag: toys

JANOD Vehicles Magnet Book

Diecast Mini-Cars & Playsets