What are the best construction toys for 3-4 years old ?

Are you also working at home with one or more pre-schoolers who need/demands lot of playing time? Are you also worried about too much screen time for your pre-schoolers and you wish to know which toys to buy to keep them occupied and learning at the same time? Do you also wish to be able to leave your phone aside and enjoy some quality play time together with your toddlers?

If you are having similar questions, this post might offer some inspirations of play.
Construction/building toys are open-ended, which means it offers an open and diverse way of playing, allowing the children (or parents) to imagine and create their own way of playing, encouraging either concentration for individual play and/or collaboration for group play, both are important skills to prepare them for the real life later. Additionally, while building the objects kids develop their skills such as hand-eye coordination, hand muscles, problem solving.

Our preferred list is the following:

• Makedo
• Lego
• Duplo
• Train sets
• Wooden blocks
• Magnetic tiles

Makedo

This is the most exciting toy for us in 2020. It is a box with simple, intuitive and safe tools for children to cut and build cupboards into their own creations – be it a playhouse, a rocket ready to launch, a driving car, an airplane – you name it! We built all of them with the Makedo items we bought on bol.com, including:

A) 40 screws;  

B) screw driver;

C) mini tool (to punch holes and a mini screwdriver too);  

D) safe cupboard saw.

It guarantees hours of fun and helps us to recycle all the cupboards at home from all the online shopping during COVID lockdowns.

Lego

Lego has so many fans worldwide, it is wonderfully educational among all age groups above 4 years. Our boy is just over 3 years, he cannot yet build LEGO himself independently, but he found it most fun to combine the lego (which is already built by Papa) with other toys that can make some cohesive stories.

 Our favorites for our two boys are:

• For police man role play

Police car: LEGO 60239 City Police Politiepatrouille auto speelgoed auto set

Police airplane: LEGO 60206 City 4+ Luchtpolitie Vliegtuigpatrouille

• For fireman role play

Fire boat: Lego 60213 City Brandweer Dockside

Fire engine and hamburger shop: LEGO 60214 City Burger Bar Fire Rescue Engine Toy

• For city/family life play

Camper: LEGO City Pick-uptruck en Caravan – 60182

• 3 in 1 Dinosour: Lego 31058 Creator Dinosaurus

Example of open ended play: My elder son loves to role play with different sets, he might imagine he is driving with us parents in the Caravan to a camping site in Italy, on the way he is hungry therefore we stop at a burger restaurant near the dock, which happen to be on fire, so the firetruck and fireboat come in action to save the restaurant. And police men in car and airplane are searching the city to find out who set out the fire. Lego is one of the best to leave so much freedom for kids to imagine and live in their own stories.

Duplo

Duplo is much more friendly for younger builders 2-5 years old. I’d recommend the basic sets for the intention of open-ended play, the basic bricks offers most opportunity for kids to imagine and create objects on their own, instead of being -preprogramed by certain instruction booklet.

Example: Duplo Creative 45019

Train tracks

Train tracks are another toy of unlimited ways to enjoy the building fun. We found wooden tracks are more versatile and it is easy to find any additional compatible train tracks to expand the construction. We have had different sets from second hand market, from Ikea, from Lidl shop – all of them are compatible and kids start building right away and create their own shapes of tracks without needing any instruction booklet.

Wooden blocks

If your budget allows you for one set of wooden blocks only, I’d recommend “Plan toy 50 pieces set” for four reasons:

1. Open play

Basic yet thoughtful design for creativity and open play: in 5 colors (wood color, yellow, red, green, blue) and 5 basic shapes (squared column, round columns, rectangular columns, squares, and triangles).

2. Mathematical education

Concept of “double” and “half”: 1 yellow triangle = 2 x red triangles

Concept of “double” and “half”: 1 blue square = 2 x red triangles

Therefore: 1 yellow triangle = 1 blue square

1 blue square = 2 x red triangles

1 rectangular = 2 x blue squares

Therefore 1 rectangular = 4 x red triangles

The simple design is not random but well thought of to give more educational purpose of this wooden block set.

3. Safety

Very high standard of safety for young builders – using sustainable material and manufacturing process for product creation.

4. A winner

Award winning brand in the toy industry globally

Magnetic tiles

I plan to write a much more detailed analysis on the magnetic tiles. The first set i got for the boys is the 30 piece basic set from Magformers. It is a bit pricy but the high quality is guaranteed. It comes with 18 squared pieces and 12 triangle pieces. I initially tend to underestimate how creative you can be with these tiles.

With the simple shapes and basic structures, my elder boy was immediately building by himself and also with his friends, without following the instruction book. They built rocket to the moon, submarine under water, house for the family, giant pizza in a restaurant, ham and cheese sandwiches, crane at the port, spaceship with solar panels. I am always impressed by how open these magnetic tiles invite kids to play, imagine and make up their own stories.