Gender Building
A conversation that I had in the K’Nex booth at Toy Fair got me thinking. A marketing executive there was telling me that there’s a huge drop-off in the number of girls that play with building toys starting at Kindergarten, and then it only gets worse from there. This really bummed me out. We’re huge into building at our house, what with all of Olive’s Legos, Magneatos, Magnetiles, Lincoln Logs, Wedgits, K’Nex, and plain ol’ blocks. I’m sure I’m even leaving things off of that list.
While I hope Olive will keep building with any type of building set, I did see some products that had particular girl appeal. K’Nex Education had these great little mosaic sets. While not totally unique (I remember playing in the PixelBlocks booth for an hour at a previous Toy Fair), they’re enhanced with various creativity and learning activities.
One of our favs, Wedgits, is trying new sets of pink and purple to keep girls building. Again, I hope that Olive is fine for a while with her primary-colored set, but hey, if pink and purple is what it takes, so be it.
My favorite discovery are the Bonz building sets from Curious Toys. Sets like these SeaBonz have appeal not just for constructing but also for storytelling, which is a big part of Olive’s building play.
Keep building, girls!
