What exactly is Simbrix? The best way we thought of to describe it is a cross between legos, Minecraft and Perler beads. They are tiny little brick like square beads that interlock.
The kit comes with two large bags of a variety of colored squares and one small bag of glow in the dark squares.
They are quite small but large enough for developing fine motor skills with small children.
They were developed and created in Nottingham, Great Britain and they come with this very handy canvas drawstring bag for storage. Cleaning up was a breeze.
My college aged big girl Punkin right away did a google search for "pixel art" once she discovered how the squares interlock. Her fiance' (wowsa - not quite used to that yet - she is recently engaged - hooray!!), her fiance' loves spiderman so she got right to work on creating him.
It's always a plus when the sisters who are ten years apart in age find something they both enjoy doing together.
My girls both noticed that they were thinking through the building process in a "square" way very similar to how you build and create with the popular video game Minecraft.
The cutest dog in the world loves to make an appearance in every Timberdoodle review. He gave Simbrix two paws up! (and he didn't even try to taste one).
The first thing Boo created (who just happens to be a fourth grader) was a quick and easy ladybug which was shown on the enclosed inspiration sheet.
Punkin made quick progress on Spider Man but soon discovered she ran out of red before he was complete, so she had to improvise a bit with color selection.
Boo made a cute little duck next.
Soon she was creatively playing that Spider Man had a pet duck. The great part about Simbrix is they interlock and stay together very well so you can pick up your creations and play with them similar to how you would play with legos. They don't fall apart!
Since it is summer time and homeschooling is on the back burner for now, we just had creative fun with Simbrix. I can see how I could easily adapt it into a kinesthetic learning tool. We could build a whale or starfish as we are learning about ocean life in science, we could build a replica of a burning bush as we read about Moses during bible time, or even create the flag of the country we are studying about in geography. The possibilities are endless - and it's possible to even create 3D objects from Simbrix if you wanted to. The directions also suggest being able to heat fuse the bricks together just like you would with the perler beads if you want to keep them fused together permanently. We love Simbrix because you don't need a pegboard to creative something like with perler beads, plus they are much more durable and easy to work with. They work well for many ages and are a great way to keep hands busy while listening to a read-aloud as well.
Edited to add another picture of creations they made - they can't put these things down!
Simbrix is not only great summer fun it is also very educational - a big win for any mom whether you homeschool or not!
I was sent this product to review as a member of Timberdoodle's blog team. All opinions are strictly my own.
1 comments:
Oh my gosh, you have been busy with Timberdoodle product reviews!! I am enjoying them. :) I have a up and coming 4th grader next fall. So, I ordered bits and pieces of the 4th grade curric., especially the fun extras. We had the Simbrix out today. And even my soon to graduate high school teen joined in. She enjoyed them too. They are fun! Timberdoodle has so many fun things!!
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