Building is such a great activity for children. It develops planning, creativity, problem-solving, spatial perception, as well as good hand-eye coordination. I have many different types of blocks for my daughter but right now, she has one favorite kind: SmartMax Magnetic Discovery bars and balls.

We received a SmartMax Basic 25 Set a few weeks ago and so far, my daughter has played with it nearly every day. What’s so fun about it is that the bars and balls are magnetic. It’s easier for my daughter to build something because the pieces stick together whereas with typical blocs, she tends to knock them down accidentally.

Here are other SmartMax Sets available:

There are 16 bars in the Basic set: 4 long bars and 12 short ones. The bars comes in different colors: red, blue, yellow, green. Other sets also have orange, purple, pink and white bars and different shape bars. The way the bars are designed is that cold color bars (blue, green) attract warm color bars (red, yellow). However, if you try to place 2 cold color bars together (or 2 warm color bars), they will repel each other.

At this stage, my daughter doesn’t understand how magnets work but I’ve seen her many times trying to put together 2 same color bars that repel each other and giving me puzzling looks. Soon enough, she’ll deduce which colors can go together.

There are also 9 gray balls that are attracted by all the bars, regardless of their color. You can fit many bars on the same ball (over 20 bars on the same ball).

Included with the game is a booklet with general information about magnets. It has great basic information and diagrams that make it easy to explain magnetism to a child. The booklet also has activities and structures to build according to the child’s age. For example, for toddlers, it’s all about connecting bars and creating simple 2D shapes but for school-aged kids,  there are 3D shapes to copy and create.

As you can see, it’s easy to adjust what to build to your child’s age which means the same game will last for years! The challenge is also unique because of the magnets: you always have to consider which bars can connect together depending on their color. Also, the magnetism makes it very easy for little hands to connect bars and balls together and create 3D structures whereas other blocs might require more dexterity.

In summary, I (and my daughter!) really love our SmartMax Magnetic Discovery set. The bars and balls are a good shape for her little hands to hold. At first, I thought the magnets might be too strong for her to take the pieces apart but that is not the case: after a few demonstrations, she understood that she had to pull hard to take them apart. I should also mention that the magnets aren’t so strong that there is a risk of getting little fingers stuck in between 2 bars.

At this stage, my daughter is mostly exploring and trying to figure out how pieces fit together but I can’t wait for her to start really building things. Oh, she’s already very good at taking apart what I build!

Head to SmartMax if you’re looking for an innovative magnetic building toy for your child. You’ll find different sets to suit your child’s interests. Don’t forget to like them on Facebook for all the latest news and promotion.

Smart Games is generously offering one of our lucky readers their own SmartMax Basic set! The giveaway is open to US and will end March 10th. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!

Rachel