Affordable STEM Toys for Siblings

I love watching my kids play together and having open-ended STEM toys from Picasso Tiles is a great way to encourage it.

We were kindly gifted a Picasso Tiles PT82 Set, Picasso Tiles PTB100 Farm Set Bristle Blocks, and Picasso Tiles PTN100 Nuts and Bolts Building Set for purpose of review. This post contains affiliate links.

Nothing quite beats watching your kids playing together. I love seeing my 5 year old and 20 month old fully engrossed in their creativity and sharing their playful adventures. It can be hard to find toys which allow for open-ended STEM-based play without having to pay a hefty price tag. That's why I've recently grown to love Picasso Tiles products. For baby sister's 1st birthday we invested in a big set of the magnetic Picasso Tiles and I have been so pleased with how much use they get. Here are three of my kids' favorite sets to play with together.

Nuts and Bolts Building Set ($17)

I thought that this might be more for big bro than for baby sis, but to my delight this fun construction set has been equally enjoyed by both ages.

When big bro plays with it he carefully designs his builds and uses his engineering skills to make creations such as cars and robots. Meanwhile, simply using the nuts and bolts to attach parts is enough to keep baby sis busy! It melts my heart listening to big bro asking baby sis to find him parts he needs and to tighten the bolts for him.

At $17 I feel that this set is very reasonably priced. The kids love the variety of parts included, and the wheels are always used by big bro. We also enjoy the idea book, with baby sis choosing builds for big bro to complete.

Farm Set Bristle Blocks ($30)

I can remember playing with bristle style blocks as a kid- they are such a fun sensory material to explore.

You might look at this set and think it is too babyish for a 5 year old... apparently not! In fact big bro was more excited to explore this set than baby sis was! You get a great selection of bricks in the set, with different shapes and sizes, and some farm animals and people.

My kids enjoy making barns and farmyards for all of the animals. They carefully construct the barn and animal pens, before choosing where each animal will live. The blocks connect so easily and in so many different ways, making them ideal for siblings to use together even if they are different ages.

Magnetic Tiles ($52)

This is a toy I really wish I had invested in when my son was younger. The open-ended nature of magnetic tiles is awesome! The set shown here is the PT82 which costs $80 and is harder to find. I would definitely recommend taking advantage of the great price of the PT100 set, which currently costs $52 on Amazon. You can purchase the car bases separately for $8.50.

I like that the tiles are large enough for baby sis to easily build with. They are forgiving when it comes to her lack of motor control which means she can construct just like big bro, but on a simpler and smaller scale.

The range of colors is fun, and the variety of shapes means that kids can be creative with their builds. Both my kids always love to use the vehicle bases to make cars and trains!

So if you are looking to invest in a toy to encourage your kids to play together and in an open-ended way, Picasso Tiles is definitely worth checking out. You will often see us using their products for free play and play based learning activities. You can check out our '5 Ways to Learn Colors with Picasso Tiles' blog for an example.