K'Nex Review and Amazing Giveaway!

Educational play is so important in the development of healthy kids. I believe it's important for them to experiment with how things (toys) work and I like to make sure they have toys that are going to help them use their brain power to figure things out. K'nex is a company that inspires creativity in young minds. They have many age level appropriate toys starting with beginner sets for ages 2 and up to advanced sets for kids 9 and up.

I was so blessed to receive a package of eight different K'nex sets to review. Some were more age appropriate for my five year old and some more for my two year old (in fairness, they are closer to 3 and 6 than 2 and 5). I received the package a little over two weeks ago, but I wanted to be able to give a fair and accurate review, so I didn't overwhelm my boys with everything all at once. I introduced these fantastic sets one at a time every other day. We all know how kids are and it would have been pure chaos if I tried all the sets at one time. I shudder at the thought of it. I am going to list out the items I received individually in the order we played with them.

K'nex Kick It! Elmo Building set:

When my two yeard old got a load of this set, he could barely contain himself. He is mezmerized by Elmo (like most little ones that age) and could hardly wait to get his hands on this when he saw it. This set is for children ages 2-5. My two year old is shockinly good at figuring out how things work (my now five year old was the complete opposite at that age), so he had no trouble putting the pieces together and taking them apart. This set has 13 pieces and they all interlock, so you can make the Elmo as pictured (below) or make a funky shaped one like we did with the eye piece on top of the leg. My five year old enjoyed playing with his brother a lot and it gave him an opportunity to teach his little brother, which melts my heart. This set is fantastic for little ones that are just learing to put things together.

K'nex Swim Time Ernie Building Set:

This building set comes with 14 pieces and is along the same lines as the Elmo set, except it's Ernie. Myself and the two boys had a blast with this one and my five year old actually ended up drawing a beach scene for Ernie to "play at the beach". It was pretty cute. Again, it was great for my two year old as well as my older son.

K'nex Cookie Monster's Basketball Building Set:

This set actually turned out to be my two year old's favorite. His love of basketball (playing, not watching) combined with his love of Sesame Street made this a huge hit. He LOVED that Cookie Monster had a hat and could hold a basketball. We actually ended up taking out the other two sets with this one and made a bunch of funny looking shapes/characters. We had a blast with the Elmo, Ernie and Cookie Monster building sets and I know we will be using them a lot around here.

K'nex Fire Rescue 10 Model Set:

This set is for ages 5 and older, so I waited until my younger son was in bed for the night before I took this out to play with my five year old. This was a really a fun set. It contains 127 pieces and it comes with step by step directions so it's not hard to assemble (sometimes I have a little trouble with things like this). With the pieces in this set, you can actually build 10 different models. We had lots of fun trying to build all the different models.

K'nex Construction Crew Series:

There are actually four sets in this series and we received all four. We did play with them one at a time and at the end played with the four sets together.

1. K'nex Collect & Build Excavator. This set comes with 120 pieces and is for ages 5 and up. My son loved it because it has a working arm. We built it right on the brown "dirt" plate it came with and there are little fence pieces that come with it to make it look more realistic. It took us a good half hour to get it constructed, but once it was done, it was super cool.

2. K'nex Collect & Built Front Loader. I had told my son that it was a set before we played with the excavator, but I don't think he realized what I meant until he saw this set come out. He was thrilled to say the least. It has 120 pieces (ages 5 and up) and it has a working bucket, which was my sons favorite part (seeing a trend here?). This set also gets built on "dirt" and has some extra little pieces that aren't part of the structure to make it look like a more realistic construction site.

3. K'nex Collect & Build Steam Roller. This set has 121 pieces and is for ages 5 and up. The drum on the front rotates, which, again, was my sons favorite part. He loves sets that have moving parts. He was so excited by the time we were done with this set that he could barely wait to get the last piece a few days later.

4. K'nex Collect & Build Backhoe. This set contains 127 pieces and is for ages 5 and up. This set was the final piece to our "puzzle" My son quickly rounded up the other three sets and we had a blast playing construction site. All the sets each come with a construction worker, so there are plenty of "guys" to keep the construction site running!


I spent some quality time with my kids building these K'nex sets with them. It was fun and really helped them feel good about themselves once the sets were complete.

Please visit K'nex online to purchase your own set, or shop at one of these local retailers: Kohl's, Sears, Walmart, Kmart and many more. You will be glad you did!

Win it: Aimee at K'nex has generously offered one (1) of my lucky readers a package containing the same eight (8) sets that I received.

Mandatory Entry: Visit K'nex and tell me what item you would just love to have for your kiddos. Please leave me a valid email address in this comment so that I can contact you if you win. If no email address is left, the entry will be disqualified.

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This giveaway will end at midnight (EST) on 04/24/10 and is open to U.S. residents. The winner will be chosen via random.org and will be notified by email. Thanks again to Aimee at K'nex for offering this fantastic giveaway!

***Please note that I received no form of monetary compensation for this post. I did receive a sample of the product to try in order to write a fair and honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own and were not influenced in any way. ***