Magnetic Tiles and Glow Sticks

Have you and the kiddos tried magnetic tiles? We’ve begun exploring them at home, and it’s been a blast. Check out what we did with magnetic tiles and glow sticks!

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glow sticks and magnetic tiles for glow-in-the-dark fun

Amazon links included in this post.

For Engineer’s birthday, I got him a set of Picasso Tiles. Based on the reviews I read, they’re comparable to Magna-Tiles but with a smaller price tag. So far, they’ve been a huge hit and seem incredibly sturdy and well-built (I’ll let you know if that changes in the future, though)!

The kiddo loves creating and building with all kinds of materials, thus the nickname I use for him on Fun-A-Day! 🙂 The Picasso Tiles definitely intrigued him, and he’s used them for hours at a time.

To celebrate his birthday, he invited a couple of friends to a sleepover party at our place. After pizza and cake, we settled in to watch a movie (Star Wars, in case you’re wondering) “movie theater-style”. The kids turned all the lights off and pretended they have a movie theater all to themselves. They broke out glow sticks and glowing balloons while the movie was going.

This led to exploring the magnetic tiles with the glow sticks and balloons, which cracked me up! They used the balloons and the light from the movie to construct various creations. From there, the glow sticks were added as decoration and lighting to the buildings.

Construction took place on and off during the movie, with breaks to play with the balloons and have in-depth discussions about Star Wars characters! All in all, it was a fun night with the kiddos.

The children led this activity, and I loved watching what they got up to. I was allowed to play for a while, too, but their creations always turned out better than mine! 🙂

Here’s some of the learning that can (and did) take place when using glow sticks and magnetic tiles in the dark: