Learning Resources STEMS 3D Fun Educational Construction Toy for ages 5+ Set of 20 in storage tub

Bought for my 4 year old who is a big fan of construction toys. He does love them, but they are fairly tricky to use so he struggles to use them independently, so would be better for an older child. There aren't many pieces in the tub so seem expensive for what they are

I got these for my children to use as an activity to help them use their imagination to create different models and shapes. It comes with some instructions to make a few designs/models. My 7 year old is a massive fidget and loves to spend his time playing with little things he can move or build with so these were perfect for him! I can see me putting them in my handbag when we go out as a distraction or something to give the children to do whilst out - all 3 on ASD spectrum so always need fidget toys, sensory toys and distractions wherever I go.

These are good once you get use to putting them together.

My son and the minded children seem to enjoy it, so thats a win!

Bought these for Christmas for my boy with ASD. He will happily sit in bed at night playing with these. He has built some really clever things and really enjoys them.

We all remember what it was like with Mecano kits, following the pages upon pages of instructions, gradually tackling more and more complicated kits as the weeks went by.Eventually you would reach your Everest - in my case a giant swing crane design that demanded that some of your pristine straight strips had to be looped and twisted to create the rounded profile of the crane's cab.Remember how your set never recovered from it and you were left with an assortment of bent and twisted parts that were never, ever quite the same again? And you remember sitting in a darkened kitchen, a glass of Scotch on the table next to the pile of mangled parts, wishing you'd never gone down this road at all.And you remember how your father would flick the light on in the kitchen, and the look on his face, staring at you, all of eight years old, with the Scotch on the kitchen table at three in the morning. And then you'd indicate to him the small heap of misshapen pieces, and how he'd go to the sink and rinse out a mug, pull up a chair, pour himself a shot and join you in silent contemplation.Fortunately Stems is a lot more resilient than that. It's also not particularly fun and my youngest niece and nephew soon lost interest as it's quite tricky to put together, particularly when you have to twist the parts under tension in order to get anything but a flat connection.The design is actually quite clever and made to get around the limitation that you can only join the connections in a flat plane, using the flexible legs to add angles, though under tension.It just doesn't lend itself to making all that many interesting things.

These took me and my 12 year old a little while to get the hang of joining them together, but once we got it sussed, it was fun to make shapes with them, although following the instructions on the leaflet, I found the ball quite hard to join together. It says no limit building fun, but I would say that there are limits to what you can make with it. It shows you a happy kid on the packaging wearing a crown made of these, but when you look closer, you see that the crown is an illustration and has not actually even been made with these. I have no idea how you could make one. I would say good for a kid who is really good at building and construction toys, but a bit of a challenge to those who aren't so good at it. Not the easiest thing in the world to put together. My daughter enjoys taking them apart after building them together though. Maybe a couple of packs of these would enable you to produce better constructions.

great for creative kids that like building. came with some instructions. does need an adult to help as it's a little fiddly and needs some strength.