So many toys today are great. I espe­cially love toys that build imag­i­na­tion, encour­age cre­ativ­ity, and are battery-less.

K’NEX is one of those toys. K’NEX is a build­ing sys­tem whose pieces are flex­i­ble that enable your lit­tle builder to cre­ate what­ever they want in both 2-D and 3-D for­mats. Team Mom recently sent me the K’NEX 400 Pieces Tub as well as the Sesame Street Neigh­bor­hood Col­lec­tion to test out with my lit­tle men.

It was a HUGE hit!

Image: K’NEX

The K’NEX 400 Pieces Tub went to my five year old. (The rec­om­mended age range for this tub is 7+ but my five year old had no prob­lems with it at all.) At first he wanted me to work with him to build a few of the cre­ations we saw that came included with the tub-but after a few moments he decided that he would make his “own inven­tion” which absolutely thrilled me-one because I’m not very good with build­ing things-I totally sucked at mak­ing the tooth­pick bridge in high school and I wanted him to use his own imagination-get those cre­ative juices flow­ing and all. The end result was a spec­tac­u­lar con­coc­tion he called his “mas­ter­piece” of “space and time”.

What I liked:
He played with it off and on for a good two hours the first day and pretty reg­u­larly from there on out.
You can use the K’NEX with other build­ing sets like LEGO.
I liked that it came with wheels and other mov­able parts.
He was able to be cre­ative.
He could take it apart eas­ily and start over to cre­ate some­thing new.

What I didn’t like:

I’ve been pick­ing up ran­dom K’NEX every­where. It’s not really a prob­lem with the actual product-but more my son’s habit of leav­ing a toy trail wher­ever he goes.

The K’NEX 400 Pieces Tub has a sug­gested retail price of $20.99 and can be pur­chased at Tar­get, Wal-Mart, or Toys “R” Us or on the K’NEX website.

The Sesame Street Neigh­bor­hood Col­lec­tion went to my nearly 18month old (it’s rec­om­mended for chil­dren 2–5.) Big brother and I had to “play” with him for this set, but he really enjoyed all the pieces-he loves puz­zles so tak­ing the sets we built apart or remov­ing a piece then putting it back on was a cause of excite­ment for him which I loved to see.

The Sesame Street Neigh­bor­hood Col­lec­tion comes in four indi­vid­ual sets that can be coördinated.

Image: K’NEX

What I liked:
The pieces are big and easy for my lit­tle guys small hands to hold and manip­u­late.
He really enjoyed tak­ing the pieces apart, and putting them together. It was two or three pieces at a time but he and I didn’t mind at all.

What I didn’t like:
No neg­a­tives here!

The Sesame Neigh­bor­hood Col­lec­tion car­ries a sug­gested retail between $9.99 and $19.99 depend­ing on which set you buy and can be found at Tar­get, Wal-Mart, or Toys “R” Us or on the K’NEX website.

K’NEX will be host­ing a video con­test 11/4–12/7 2009 for more details visit the K’NEX web­site at www.knex.com