Magna-Tiles 1

Our teachers and children at the Urukundo School in Rwanda are using their imagination to play and create with Magna-Tiles!!! Thank you Valtech for your generous donation of a set for the school.

Founded in 1997, Valtech offers innovative tiles designed to hold a child's interest and attention, build critical developmental skills and promote imaginative play and creativity. The Valtech Magna-Tiles line of colorful building tiles have gained popularity among thousands of preschools nationwide and continue to enjoy strong responses from parents, teachers and children of all ages.

For children, taking flat objects and constructing 3-D objects is a new and exciting discovery. They are learning through creative play about construction, geometric shapes, math ideas and other real-life concepts with these colorful tiles.

First we had teacher trainings about magnets and several learning tools and how to introduce them to the children. After testing them out and discussing ways they can be used in teaching they began working with small groups of children. Most importantly the teachers knew it was about exploring and letting the kids learn through testing things out themselves. It was difficult for the teachers to observe and not tell the children "their" way of doing it. Or a different way.

I know the teachers had as much fun as the kids.