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Our family absolutely loves Magformers. We purchased our first set over a decade ago when the kids were very young, and we’ve been adding to our collection ever since. They’re well-built, safe, and engaging toys to challenge your child’s creative imagination and provide hours of playtime, alone or with friends.
The concept is simple – use magnetic building blocks of different sizes and shapes to construct whatever object you want. The possibilities are endless, and so is the fun. Magformers tap into every kid’s innate desire to build things and to show off their accomplishments.
Having Fun With Magformers
Magformers must be differentiated from a competitor, Magna-Tiles, as they have different price points and tile designs. There are Super Magformers and regular Magformers. These sets are different sizes and have unique pros and cons. There are a lot of different Magformers sets with varying numbers of pieces.
But they are all interchangeable and can be purchased over time to add to the size of your collection. A great way to get started is to buy a basic Magformers set. This Magformers set has thirty pieces, including squares and triangles.
So, let’s dive in and take a good look at Magformers. I’ll share exactly why we love them so much!
What are Magformers?
Magformers are magnetic children’s building blocks. They’re created by welding neodymium magnets into a hard plastic casing called a “tile.” The tiles are made into different shapes, like triangles, squares, octagons, and hexagons.
Each tile will attach to other Magformer tiles, allowing you to create structures of differing design, complexity, and size. The magnets are strong, giving great flexibility in building options. The magnetic strength resists gravity well, allowing for taller, heavier tile arrangements.
The different tile shapes give you a lot of flexibility in creating different types of structures. You can build tall, narrow towers, angular spheres, pyramids, flat rectangular foundations, and every conceivable permutation of those shapes.
Will Your Kids Like Magformers?
Your entire family will love Magformers. I can’t remember the last gift we bought that got so much use! In fact, I have been buying them as gifts for years. I always get a lot of compliments from both parents and kids!
However, they’re not just for kids. Over the years, Matt and I have loved working alongside the kids, playing and building with these tiles. We’ve spent countless hours sitting on the floor, creating every geometric shape. The strong magnets allow you to build large, complex structures, and the rigid plastic design is safe for kids of all ages.
These fun tiles are great for toddlers. The edges are smooth and rounded slightly, so you don’t have to worry about anyone getting poked accidentally. We loved bringing them on family travel trips to occupy the kids. They’re perfect for car rides and travel because they’re large, reusable, non-messy, won’t melt, and don’t include so many pieces that you end up losing them.
Additionally, Magformers are good for STEM education, providing kids endless opportunities to channel their inner engineer or architect. We used it as part of our homeschooling curriculum for the kids when they were toddlers. The process of planning, designing, and then building an object is both fun and educational.
Overall, your kids will have a great time with this toy, providing your family hours of safe, engaging, and rewarding playtime.
Magformers vs. Magna-Tiles
I want to stop here and highlight some important distinctions between Magformers and one of their primary competitors, Magna-Tiles. They both sell magnetic building tiles and are comparable in some ways. These differences are significant when considering which to purchase. We own both and have enjoyed both over many years. It may be helpful to hear some pros and cons based on our real-world experience.
Similarities between Magformers and Magna-Tiles
Magnetic Construction: Both Magformers and Magna-Tiles utilize magnets to connect their pieces. This allows for easy assembly and disassembly.
Educational Value: Both products promote creativity, spatial understanding, and STEM skills. Playing with such toys helps in cognitive development, hand-eye coordination, and knowledge of geometric shapes and principles.
Safety: Both brands prioritize safety by ensuring that the magnets are securely encased within the plastic, reducing the risk of them becoming loose and swallowed.
Variety of Shapes: Both sets include geometric shapes like squares, triangles, and other polygons, allowing for various construction possibilities.
Differences Between Magformers and Magna-Tiles
Design and Structure
Magformers: They typically have a hollow center and are more of a frame design. This makes them relatively lighter. Our kids enjoy the open design because you can stick objects like pencils, dolls, figurines, etc through the tiles, allowing for all kinds of creative scenarios.
Magna-Tiles: These are solid and filled in, giving them a more substantial feel and weight.
Magnetic Placement
Magformers: The magnets are placed along the edge of the shapes and can rotate to ensure they always connect.
Magna-Tiles: The magnets are fixed in place, so sometimes users may need to flip a tile to get the polarities to align correctly.
Flexibility
Magformers: Due to their design, you can pop them into a 3D shape more easily, making them slightly more versatile for certain 3D constructions.
Magna-Tiles: While they can be used for 3D constructions, their solid design makes them more suited for flat patterns or stacking.
Texture and Grip
Magformers: Their frame design might give them a slightly different grip and feel, which might be easier for younger kids to handle.
Magna-Tiles: The solid design has flat faces on both sides, making them a bit slicker to hold with small hands.
Cost
The price can vary based on where and when you purchase, but traditionally, Magformers can be a bit more expensive than Magna-Tiles on a per-piece basis. However, this might change based on location, deals, or specific sets.
Magformers Sets
Magformers has a vast and diverse array of multi-piece sets to choose from. The sets are as varied as basic sets containing 30 pieces to 144-piece sets, and even larger. The sets have numerous themes, including police, construction, rescue, aliens, animals, and many more. They offer a Backyard Adventure set with several small characters for your kids to play with. They even have huge deluxe sets like Brain Master and Brain Evolution, including over 300 pieces! With over 178 different Magformers products to choose from, it’s impossible to go wrong!
TILEBLOX
Magformers has a line of products called Tileblox. Tileblox is very similar to Magna-Tiles, and they look nearly identical. Tileblox are clear, single pieces rather than the open design. They come in sets of 20 pieces to 104 pieces in size. Tileblox are compatible with other Tileblox but not with Magformers.
Super Magformers vs Regular Magformers
Magformers also makes a line of large-sized tiles named Super Magformers. These bigger Magformers are ideal for building even larger structures. The super size is four times bigger than the regular size! They come in square and triangle shapes.
We have bought these Super Magformers numerous times and have amassed a large collection. Personally, we prefer the super size over the regular size because they are easy to manipulate and allow you to build taller designs. The super size tiles are interchangeable with the regular size tiles, so you can make them all fit together to build more complex and imaginative concepts. You can never own too many!
The Perfect Gift For Kids
Magformers make the perfect gift for your kids, family, or friends. We have filled stockings with them, wrapped up sets for Christmas, and sent them to family and friends all over. They’re an excellent alternative to electronics, video games, and throw-away games.
Playing with Magformers can enhance kids’ spatial awareness, hand-eye coordination, and understanding of geometric shapes and principles. They naturally introduce kids to concepts of design, structure, and geometry. Magformers are durable, safe, and appeal to a wide age range (even adults!). They’re compact and portable, making them perfect for family travel.
Magformers are excellent gifts for families with siblings, as they naturally inspire cooperative play. Our kids enjoyed working together to build castles, towers, and moats!
Magformers are the gift that keeps on giving. Kids will take out their Magformers for years and get countless hours of creative fun with them.
Magformers FAQ
I’ve compiled a short Magformers FAQ to answer common questions and help you decide what to buy for your family.
- SUPER refers to the size of the actual Magformers, not the size of the package.
- All Magformers are regular size except for one SUPER sized set and a few pieces in large building kits.
- My experience. We have a few sets of the SUPER 30 and several of the regular-sized ones. We play with both. We really love the SUPER ones only because they are big and really engaging. (4x larger than the regular-sized ones)
- Magformers vs. Magnatiles. They both are authentic quality versions. Magnatiles are solid surface. Magformers are open. They aren’t technically made to go together as the magnets are in different places, but my kids have them in the same tub and sometimes play with them together. We prefer Magformers only because my kids gravitated toward them at school, and we own many of them. Abby likes the openness to stick toys in. I personally think the magnets are a lot stronger on the Magformers.
- If you want to see all Magformers sets, just click here. Be sure to look for Magformer sales.
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