A new mission has arrived for Agents Z, T & R from BigJigs Play Patrol for the month of August. They are always so excited to see what’s inside the box! The contents did not disappoint and we have been loving the great quality selection of wooden toys that were provided. First up, they decided to try out the wooden construction set.
Each toy comes labelled for a specific child, but having three children together of the same gender and similar ages (they are each 1.5 years apart) we tend to share when we find toys that are durable and appeal well to all three. The wooden construction set led it self really nicely to sharing and team work. There are 51 pieces including nuts, bolts and wooden pieces of various shapes.
We set everything out on the tuff spot to keep it all contained in one space and to let the children see at a glance what was available.
The bright colours immediately appealed to them, and stuck up a simple conversation among the boys about which colours they liked the best and which ones they wanted to use.
At first all three boys were playing separately with the tools within the space, exploring the materials on their own levels:
- Manipulating the screws and pieces of wood to explore how they work
- Creating patterns with shapes and colour
- Purposefully creating the representation of an object
With the younger boys who initiated their play on the more basic level, I found that with support from me playing alongside and talking about what we were doing they were able to advance their play to the more purposeful level. Mr Z immediately engaged with the construction set on that level, so I also used him to model some of the building and to help focus his younger brothers on a team build.
I also love to see Mr T helping his little brother. We’ve used a lot of the “forced alternatives” technique with him in speech therapy (offering two choices) so now with this type of toy he will take two pieces and offer the choice to Mr R in the same way he has seen done so many times! It’s great that they are working together to help each other develop their skills.
After spending some time making their own weird and wonderful improvised creations (mainly vehicle based), We decided to work together on making the helicopter model which is shown on the pack. By working as a team we were able to practise plenty of turn taking, as well as listening and looking skills. Mr Z was in charge of the actual construction and the younger boys were given simple tasks like “find me a blue screw”,”find a wooden block” this helped them practise their listening skills for two step commands in a fun way.
This set is lots of fun and appealed really well to all the boys. I do love seeing them play with construction toys and seeing how their ideas and skills develop over the time the more they practise with a particular set. It’s lovely to see their proud faces showing off their creations too!
The possibilities are almost endless with construction toys. I loved how Mr T decided to build letters and numbers from the wooden construction set. We’ve done similar with laminated straight and curved pieces (See our post on working on pre-writing skills for some examples)
This is his number 4. This activity can then be made into a group activity by making up quizzes for each other and getting them to guess the letters and numbers that have been made, or setting a challenge to make certain letters.
Of course this type of toy is also a great fine motor activity, with all that twisting and screwing helping to strengthen little hands.
The Bigjigs wooden construction set is available for £ 22.49 for 51 pieces and comes in a handy storage barrel. We would recommend it as a great toy for any child 2-6 and a great option for group play with siblings of different ages.
For more wooden toy suggestions you might be interested in our other Bigjigs posts:
- Ways to play and learn with wooden blocks
- Developing imaginary play with Bigjigs wooden roadway
- Teddy bears picnic with Bigjigs cutting fruit set
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
We have a very similar set to this and Bud struggled with it at first. I should really get it out again to see how well he likes it now. I’m quite surprised it’s recommended for 2-6 actually. Bud needed really heavy supervision with it at 3, I’d say more like 5 or 6 for independent play.
I had a set like this when my 2 older boys were little and they played with it for hours – working together make, as you say, mainly huge cars!
I think it’s just a difference in skills and natural affinity, but my 4 year old has been able to use these since 2, he’s always had very good pincer grip and fine motor skills – they’re all different 🙂
What a lot of fun and great team work from your boys!
This is on my list of ideas for Monkey’s birthday to use with his work bench. Love the look of the pieces #TriedTested
We have a set like this too, and the bigger children work together to create a range of weird and wonderful things. Max just likes to bash things at the moment lol. Great review with gorgeous pictures, thanks for linking up with #TriedTested
Looks like a great set with almost endless possibilities for construction play! It must be so nice seeing them all working together and communicating to achieve something, excellent life skills for all of them! Thanks for linking with #letkidsbekids
These look fab. I love how construction toys help kids develop their imaginations and logic skills.