Polydron Translucent KinderMag
This year, Polydron brings you a fantastic new resource for schools and nurseries, suitable from 12 months+. The Translucent KinderMag construction sets are designed to support mathematical skills, design reasoning, fine motor control, and of course imaginative construction play.
KinderMag is a fantastic open ended resource, supporting children’s acquisition of multiple skills across the Early Years Foundation Stage. With this in mind, we’re breaking down 5 fun ways to incorporate this multi-purpose resource in your cohort’s play. We’re certain you’ll love it as much as we do!
3D Shape Exploration
Being magnetic, KinderMag’s pieces align really well with exploring and creating 3D shapes. Children will love modelling cubes and pyramids, then placing these shapes together to make large construction pieces like houses, vehicles, and more. Add simple sound buttons or labels to encourage children to think about what 3D shapes make up their creation, or challenge little ones to create the 3D shapes they have been learning about in maths!
Fine Motor Play
The practice of adding each magnetic piece together is a great exercise in fine motor development. Exploring which magnets connect and which don’t, as well as manipulating each shape to ensure structures are sound, are both fantastic exercises in hand eye coordination. These would work brilliantly on your finger gym or fine motor table if this is a focus for your cohort.
Small World Play
KinderMag is a truly open ended construction resource. Children can build anything! With that in mind, adding small world figures, vehicles or animals will extend play even further. Children could create fairy castles, giant jungles or car parks. Vehicles will work especially well here if children are able to construct ramps and tunnels to push them through.
Transient Art and 2D Shape Play
Why not cut out the example pictures we provide in each pack and laminate them to encourage little ones to make flat 2D images using KinderMag? We’ve made all sorts of fun creations, and lots of language around 2D shape will come in as children use triangles and squares to build the images they have in their mind. If you are focusing on a particular shape in your teaching, you could leave out only this shape in a construction tuff tray and see what children can create using only triangles or only squares.
Translucent Light Box Play
The translucent nature of our new KinderMag set aligns it beautifully with light box play. Encourage little ones to create pictures, stack the magnetic pieces or explore how the light moves through the shapes for an innovative way to explore 2D and 3D shape creation. If your light box has multiple colour settings this will be an even more exciting experience, as children explore colour mixing and the effect of the different shades on how the pieces look!