I was recently approached on twitter by XZYBuilds to review their new product a construction set for all ages. I was intrigued, so I said yes, and shortly afterwards, a small, but surprisingly heavy box arrived.
Contents as shown.
I was quite surprised that there weren’t any instructions. But the children didn’t seem to need any. So Smallest got stuck straight in.
And Small wasn’t far behind.
Within minutes, they were building house shaped structures, discussing prisms, and cubes and designing nets. They worked out the quirks of building in terms of how to match sides together, and plan ahead to have a net fold up into something solid. They’d have missed out if there had been instructions or suggestions I think.
Obviously I had to experiment with my camera.
Though quickly I had to give up my tiles, as the other children came to join in.
Do you know how rare it is to find an activity that occupies 4 children, age 3 to 15, that doesn’t involve chocolate? We may need more tiles though 😉
They built mansions. Dogs. Cubes and prisms. Towers. A minecraft hammer. And there was planning and cooperation and harmony. It was beautiful to watch.
Smallest was very proud of her Dalmatian, which featured in the XYZBuilds newsletter this week.
(They suggested we call him ReXYZ 😉 )
She was very brave in sacrificing him to the needs of her brothers minecraft hammer. And then we put as many constructions together as we could, to see what we’d built.
All of that came out of that small cardboard box. And went back into it. A self contained toy, that stretches the imagination, encourages creativity, experimentation, cooperation. Allows for mathematical and scientific conversation, and is surprisingly pleasurable to the touch.
Did you get the idea that I was really impressed with this? Because I was. And I’m not just saying that – while I was sent the tiles for review, I’ve received no other compensation for this post. I’m just going to say that I think you should take a look at XZYBuilds, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Leave a Reply