A few weeks ago, we received a bucket of Meccano to review. I'm not sure why, really, but it's a toy that we've never had at The Madhouse before so I was keen to see what the Madhouse Mini-testers would make of it (and out of it).
Well, first of all, I was stunned to see that soon-to-be-4-year-old Pierre instantly and instinctively knew what to do with it. Without anybody explaining anything to him, he tipped the whole lot out on the floor and started lining them up in colour and length groups, then joining them together with the nuts and bolts.
The girls weren't far behind though. Juliette keeps popping in looking all excited to say "look what I've made now, Mum". Her first creation was a picture frame. Then she was very impressed to discover that she could push the top and pull the bottom to make a diamond shape. I decided to turn it into a bit of a maths lesson and tell her that she'd just made a parallellogram, but by this point she'd run off to make something new !
This was her next creation - it's a man sitting on a wall apparently. I love how proud she looks in all of these photos. It's great for improving imagination and creativity but also confidence.
The bucket includes a little booklet that gives you a few ideas of things to make to get you started, one of which is a sword, so Pierre and Juliette had great fun running around having pretend sword fights too.
You don't need to use their ideas though - the only limit is your imagination. Juliette came up with this xylophone, and used another piece of Meccano to bash out a tune. I love seeing how kids' minds work !
There's no age limit either. 11-year-old Sophie got involved too, making this rather cool electric guitar. Not sure the fluffy slippers go with the rock star look though !
I love how versatile it is and how it appeals to such a wide range of ages - even the grown-ups have been having a play when they think nobody's looking ! It's great to have a collection that you can add to too, increasing the creative options for making something really impressive.
star rating : 5/5
RRP : £19.99
for more information : http://www.meccano.com/uk/
Disclosure : We received a bucket of Meccano in order to write an honest review.
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We bought a tub of cheap wood and plastic set of the same thing from Lidl a few months ago for Grace just to see if she was interested in the Meccano type idea, and she was. So we looking for a 'proper set' so thanks for this review. Will check this out for a present.
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