(Magnetic Edition)

This item is great! My 3 year old loves it. I really appreciate the difficulty progression of the cards. The first few help young kids learn how to make the shapes and slowly progress to difficult images. I bought this version because I wanted the option of the magnets. These come without the magnets attached and recommend that you use them without for younger kids to work on fine motor control and then put the magnets on later. I will eventually put the magnets on but I wish I would have bought the nonmagnetic version for cheaper and just used a roll of self-adhesvie magnet strips. Overall I would have saved a little but hey what ya gonna do. This comes with a nice metal tin for storage which is a plus. Love this item and helps develop spatial reasoning, problem solving, fine motor control. I bought this over the Imaginets set because those cards have the answer on the cards so you don't actually have to figure it out, just match up the shapes. This set is much better for spatial reasoning and has more challenging sets you can get later.

These are great for young children. They require (and develop) critical thinking and spatial skills. I have a 3 year old who immediately sat down and whipped through cards 1-16. We are moving a little more slowly now bc there is less direction, but she's not having any problems -- just taking her time and sorting them out. There are a number of different solutions, and several that look like they would work but then leave you with insufficient shapes for other patterns on the same car, so the child has to rethink what she did and find the solution. It never frustrates her to identify and fix a problem. The one complaint I have is how slippery the tiles are and how easily they move out of place. The advertising insert in the box promotes a separate package of "stick on magnets" for the tiles, which sounds like a huge pain. I think some of thir newer products come with magnets attached, and it probably would be worth the investment, especially for little handsl

I bought this toy a year ago for my then 2 year old son who is not very fond of puzzles. Alex loves "Shapes" as he calls it. While many other toys have been forgotten, he will often grab the tin and bring it to my husband or myself and say "Play with shapes." He quickly mastered the easier puzzles and likes to watch us complete the harder ones - with his assistance of course. It is a great game and helps kids master shapes, colors, compare sizes - big and small, spacial relations, critical thinking, blah blah blah. It's fun! I am also a 5th grade teacher and I use this in my classroom when I introduce geometry and area of a two dimensional object. While it's true that the adhesive on the back of the magnets is not all that sticky, Super Glue is very sticky and since we always have it on hand for toy repairs it was a quick and easy solution.

I'm a pediatric occupational therapist, and love this activity for my clients and my two-year old daughter because it helps develop fine motor skills, visual motor integration, visual perception and problem solving. This activity is also well designed to use for many years because you can grade it up or down depending on the child's level. The magnetic style also makes it easy to take on the go.

My sons, aged 2 and 3, both love this. It has easy designs to more complicated cards that challenge both of them and provides room to grow. Definitely lets them be creative and have fun as they work to solve each card.Update: My children still love to play with this product. I will say, for the stack of card designs, I used two rings to keep them together. Otherwise the cards go everywhere all the time. It would work well with just one ring, too. For the actual pieces, when complete, I usually have them put them all back in the plastic shapes, to ensure that all the pieces are there. However, if the box is starting to fall to pieces, I would recommend using a small ziploc bag to keep them all together. I really do like this set and its fun to see the children learn and continue to improve on their abilities to solve these puzzles. In the beginning, my 3-year-old could not complete the last couple puzzles because they seemed difficult and confusing. Now that he is 4 and has played with them more often, he can complete the puzzles with no problem. Not only does he complete them, but sometimes he uses different pieces to solve similar problems. Definitely a great set to challenge young children. I would definitely recommend this set and look forward to purchasing the more difficult sets in the future.

2.5 year old son already interested and constantly asks to play with it during the last 3 days!He's able to complete the simple ones, but not the complicated ones yet, however enjoys watching me do it.I usually finish part of the puzzle and he loves to "help" with the rest. :)I'm sure it will last for years (to keep him engaged).I'm happy I didn't go with the simpler puzzles (like the melissa and doug version) which I'm sure he'll solve with 30min and lose interest in.Plastic material is not an issue as I originally worried about.Concerns:1) pieces a little on the small side. and no redundancy... I'm worried that he'll lose a few here and there and then it can't be played anymore.2) also worried that he'll crumble the puzzles cards. well... it says for >3 year old anyway so I can't complain. :)Very satisfied.

Our 2 year old recently gained interest in puzzles and moved quickly from 2 piece to 12 piece to 24 piece. I'm tired of buying him new puzzles so I went looking for other options and thankfully ran across this gem! He LOVES it! Once he understood the concept, he was able to work through a number of the puzzles, including two of the last puzzles with the help of just one piece from mom. This thing is going to be around our house for a long time it seems. Architect wife and Engineer husband also love watching him explore how his brain can function to a higher degree than a lot of toys for his age allow.