Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Wooden building blocks...not just for littles!

Several years ago I splurged on some wooden Kapla blocks.  It felt a little strange to be purchasing wooden blocks, seeing that my youngest was about 9 at the time.

These aren't your ordinary blocks, though. The planks are precision cut and identical in size, making for some very stable building pieces.  They are still a great source of entertainment, even though my kids are now almost 12 and 14.  My son had a friend over the other day and this is what they came up with:
Pretty cool, eh?  My son (on the left) stands about 4'-10", just so you get an idea of how tall this tower is.  I think they used all 1000+ pieces we own.

After his friend left, my kids decided to make a giant Jenga game out of the tower.  If you aren't familiar with Jenga, a (much smaller) tower is built of wooden pieces and opponents slowly remove a piece while trying to keep the structure from falling.  Whomever collapses the tower loses the game.
They found they had to remove quite a few to even get the structure to budge.

Soon the bottom collapsed, but the structure was still standing.
Just a couple more...

Down comes the rest! Unfortunately my camera didn't capture much of the exciting fall. Though you can see the delight it created!
Great fun for a tween and teen, no?  It sure beats video games!
Unfortunately, they no longer sell this particular brand in the U.S.  I have since seen other brands that are very similar.  I have a feeling my kids will be coming home from college and will still build with these blocks!

3 comments:

Tristan said...

Heidi,

I'm reviewing a product right now that seems to be a version of this: www.citiblocs.com My kids are having fun and my husband is too...LOL!

Heidi said...

Tristan,

Yes, that is the brand available here that appears to be identical. What a very cool product to review! Have fun!

Blossom Barden (NorthLaurel) said...

That is awesome. I can just imagine how fun that must have been :)