CONNETIX Through the Ages: How CONNETIX Grow with Your Child
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Something parents can all agree on is that the best toys are beloved and played with for years, not just a season. With most toys, your child may play with them for a while, but as they further develop their cognitive and motor skills, their interest moves toward more advanced toys.
The wonderful thing about CONNETIX is they are designed to be adaptable to your child’s age. As your child grows and develops, CONNETIX can be used to build more advanced projects. In a way, the tiles themselves grow and develop along with your child.
CONNETIX come in different shapes and sizes, and connect in a way that allows for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures to be built. This is a key component to what makes CONNETIX so useful, as early-stage children are likely not quite ready to build a structure in 3D. They can, however, begin by using the tiles in two-dimensions before graduating the three-dimensional builds that will become more complex over time.
Let’s look at some examples of how your child’s cognitive and motor skills can progress to make their CONNETIX play more advanced.
When you child first begins to experiment with their CONNETIX, they are likely to be in early childhood. They may not be able to build any type of true structure yet but will be fascinated with the tiles themselves. Children in this group like to observe the world around them using all of their senses, including their sense of touch.
They’ll look through the tiles, taking note of the different colours and shapes. They may be intrigued by the tactile sensation of joining the tiles then separating them as they move the tiles around in their hands. At this early stage, they are soaking in all of the sensory information like little sponges and familiarizing themselves with their new toys.
Don’t be discouraged if your child isn’t ready to build anything yet! Children of course develop different skills at different rates, and this early observational stage is critical to learning the world around them. They are just teaching themselves what the tiles are at this stage, and the building will begin in stage two.
Now your child will start to learn that shapes and colours of tiles can be put together to make a larger shape. This may not look like anything recognizable at first, but eventually they will start building boxes, pyramids, and other patterns that are satisfying to them. They will primarily be working in a more two-dimensional way here still, but the CONNETIX will help them get a feel for how many small things can come together to make one big thing.
At this stage, they are likely to start discovering some favourite colours and may even show a tendency to prefer symmetrical shapes over asymmetrical. They may not realize this yet, but just observe them playing and you may notice they begin to develop a penchant for replicating basic symmetric shapes as they get closer to stage three.
In stage three, your child’s cognitive abilities and their motor skills are becoming highly developed. It’s at this point where they start becoming more interested in how the tiles interact in 3D space. Rather than a simple box or pattern, they’ll begin to build actual structures.
Children at this point tend to become interested in building things that have a good amount of height. You’ll see them piecing together towers, houses, castles, and any other basic structure that can exist in a three-dimensional build space.
It is at this stage when your child begins to develop some creativity. Their brains are becoming more curious about building useful things that may even solve problems that they devise.
For example, perhaps they have decided that they need a way for their action figures or dolls to get across the moat to their castle. So, they decide that they need to use their CONNETIX to build a bridge, showing themselves to have a bit of an engineer’s mindset.
For children who like toy cars, there is little that is more entertaining than sending their cars off a big ramp. This is the stage in their development where they can now use their CONNETIX to build the perfect ramp for their toy cars.
Other examples of creative builds your child may experiment with at this stage are houses, basic ball runs, and maybe even a barn with some animals to go with it.
In the fifth and final stage your child is really ready to experiment with the most complex and challenging builds.
Many children become fascinated with mazes, and CONNETIX are the perfect tool for them to build large and complex mazes. They are likely used to seeing pen and paper style mazes and seeing this translated into a true three-dimensional object is a lot of fun.
If they are mini architects, they are likely to begin playing with houses and buildings that are much more creative and complex. CONNETIX offer your child the ability to not only create different room layouts in their buildings, but they can also experiment with different colors and how they complement one another.
At stage five, what your child can build with their CONNETIX is limited only by their imagination. The more creative they become, the more they unlock the potential of what they can build.
CONNETIX are adaptable to your child’s developmental progress. This means that if they start playing with CONNETIX at an early age, they can be a perfect learning tool as the child becomes more advanced in their cognition. The familiarity with the tiles as they grow, only helps to promote an expansion of your child’s creativity and understanding of building structures.
Whether it is the colours, the shapes, or the flexibility of what they can build, children of all ages can enjoy and benefits of building with CONNETIX.
The CONNETIX team of play experts is made up of qualified teachers, early childhood educators, industry specialists and dedicated parents who are passionate about open-ended play, STEAM learning and quality resources. Together, they share their expertise, experience and love of all things CONNETIX to inspire play-based learning.
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