Okay, so why did K’nex win over Legos, my husband wants to know? Even my oldest son was shocked until he paused and said, “Actually, I love them both equally.” Being the mother, I know that my kids ask for K’nex more than they ask for Legos. It’s true. Hit me with tomatoes if you want to. I won’t back down. We’ve made simple machines with them, to learn more about scientific principles. Building bridges and roller coasters actually teaches you engineering. And the structures that my children have built have been way more interesting than Legos. (Ouch! That one hit me in the eye. You can stop throwing tomatoes now.)
You might have thought, how did I come up with the top 10 best open-ended toys ever? Well, I went through thousands and thousands of my pictures, putting into folders any picture that was good, that showed an open-ended toy. Hands down, K’nex won overwhelmingly. My folder of “good pictures” of K’nex was bursting with 80 pictures, compared to the few dozen for Legos. So an impartial judge would have to conclude that K’nex wins over Legos. After all, you can connect them in more innovative ways than you can with Legos. (I’m sure my husband could make a case that this is not true, since he is smitten by Legos, but I must be objective here.) Boom! Case closed.
Tags: building sets, open-ended toy, toys
These are so neat! It makes me want to go out and buy some. Can you believe I’ve never even heard of K’nex? I saw your comment on my “sad” post. My first thought was, “Oh no, not that one, not now!” 🙂 I’m glad you did find the humor in it! If not for finding the humor in my day I’m sure I’d go mad!
We got most of our K’nex from E-bay on pennies to the dollar. You can also get them on Craig’s List and build quite a large set without going broke. Used sets can sometimes have missing pieces, though, which is one thing you have to be aware of. You can usually substitute other pieces for missing pieces.
And yes, humor can diffuse painful situations, which is why I like your blog so much. My husband is normally such a goofball, but all the humor has been temporarily knocked out of him.
This ‘unscientific’ survey only proves that K’Nex wins over Legos at your house, not every house. LOL We had both toys and my 4 boys seemed to enjoy and request Legos more than K’Nex. Not sure why, that’s just the way it was.
Interesting, to be sure. Enjoyed the post.
Yes, each house will have their own winners!
LOVE THIS!
We have just discovered Knex. We bought three little kits that build into a bigger space shuttle. It is such an interesting material to build with. I showed my boys your fantastic (inspirational) photos and showed my husband the You Tube vid and it has sparked a project bigger than Ben Hur!
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to post this, it is amazing. I will follow your blog!
I’m so glad this was inspirational to you! That’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish with this post!
We got rid of our k’nex several years ago because my kids weren’t playing with them. Then I saw k’nex education, and bought the dna set. Putting that together sparked a renewed interest in k’nex, and there will be more of them under the tree this year.
The DNA set would have been fun for our study of biology!