Price Tag: $49.99
Age Range: 3+ (younger with careful supervision)
Official URL: fatbraintoys.com
Rating:

These earth-friendly wooden blocks have become one of my favorite toys.. Err. I mean one of my son’ s favorite toys.

These blocks are educational, imaginative, brightly colored and amazingly addictive for children and adults of all ages. They’re the one toy that our son, my husband, our nanny and I can lose ourselves in playing with for hours.

AESTHETIC

Twig blocks come in a set of 72 pieces in red, orange, yellow, green, light blue and navy blue. The blocks are brightly stained with non-toxic dyes instead of painted, so the wood grain and natural color variations of the wood are visible.

Individual blocks are simple in construction, and when they are combined they become fantastic abstract sculptures that look as though they belong in the Museum of Modern Art.

EDUCATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT VALUE

Younger children can use these blocks to develop fine motor skills, as these blocks act like mini shape sorters that require patience and manipulation to fit them together. Color sorting and color naming are a lot of fun with these blocks, and children as young as two will have a lot of fun putting the blocks back into the box with a little bit of help from mom or dad. If your child is going through the phase of lining up toys or sorting by shape and color, this toy will be an instant beloved addition to their toybox.

Stacking these blocks provides your child with some interesting challenges and things to learn. Children can experiment with stacking and stability by threading the blocks together in different configurations. One of my son’s favorite games is building an elevator by putting down a cube, putting a matchstick through the cube, stacking a rectangle on top of the protruding edge of the matchstick, putting another matchstick in top of the cube, and continuing to alternate until a tall tower has been built. Once the tower is built, you can slide one of the open-faced cubes onto the tower, and it will rattle down like an elevator. If you do this with all 6 of the open-faced cubes you end up with a rather interesting and very stable skyscraper that is fun to knock over and begin again.

Beyond basic stacking and stability experiments, these blocks allow you to build robots, spikey geometric abstracts, and all sort of different things.

These Twig blocks take the simple concept of “wooden blocks” and turn them into something very different that retains the simplicity and open-endedness of building blocks while becoming instantly more engaging for older children and adults that have become accustomed to complexity. I read somewhere that these blocks are an “instant classic”, and I instantly agreed.

CONSTRUCTION & QUALITY

These blocks are of a very high quality, in fact their design makes the high quality mandatory, as the blocks fit within each other very snugly and any slight variations in quality would result in the blocks not working correctly.

The sides and insides of each block are smooth to the touch (with the exception of the circular hole, which does not need to be smooth, and where roughness is actually an asset when building). The blocks are all splinter-free, free of defects, and absolutely beautiful.

There are 72 blocks total, and six different colors. Each color has the same assortment of styles: a large open-faced cube, a blocky rectangular prism with square cutouts that pass through the center of the block both length-wise and cross-wise, a blocky cube with the same square cutouts that pass through each side, a short squat block that has the same footprint as the cube but is shorter, and that has a large circular cutout in the center, and eight “matchstick” blocks that fit perfectly through the holes in the rectangular prism or the cube.

The rectangular prism fits perfectly through any side of the open-faced cube, the square and the block with the circular cutout fit perfectly inside of the rectangular prism, and the matchstick blocks fit into the square holes of the rectangular prism and cube.

The blocks hold up well to use and abuse, and it would seem that their only possible weakness is water. (I would not submerge these blocks or any wooden toy in water)

MATERIAL SAFETY & EARTH-FRIENDLINESS

These blocks are made with all natural wood and non-toxic stains. The blocks have been tested and pass CPSCIA requirements.

When you get your set of Twig blocks, make sure you sniff them. The scent of wood is subtle but oh-so-delicious.

These toys are environmentally friendly, in that they are made of renewable wood, non-toxic stains, and are packed in a simple cardboard box that is intended to be reused or recycled rather than discarded. The blocks themselves, are also intended to be used and passed on rather than being discarded as so many toys are.

THE “MADE IN CHINA” LABEL

Fat Brain Toys is a company that is pretty well known for their selection of “Made in America” toys, so it was a bit confusing why this particular wooden toy was “Made in China”. Apparently FBT worked very hard to have it manufactured in the USA, but they couldn’t find an option that made it even close to cost effective while maintaining the quality of the toy. Despite a “simple” design, the toys require a high level of craftsmanship. The Twig blocks pass all CPSIA testing and are high quality.

While I’m normally skeptical about “cost effective” justification for manufacturing toys in China, I have to say that after using Twig blocks for a bit and seeing how tightly they fit together, and how sophisticated the design is.. I’m willing to believe the story. FBT’s reputation is so good, and the quality of the toy is so high that I can’t imagine quality control slipping up at any point. I would love to see these toys carry a “Made in the USA” label at some point, though, if they ever find it possible.

PACKAGING & STORAGE

Twig blocks come in a reusable high-quality brown cardboard box that gives me flashbacks to how toys used to be packaged “back in the day”. You know, those retro toys that had brown boxes that somehow managed to survive across multiple decades and generations of use? This packaging reminds me of that.

The blocks fit into the box almost like a puzzle, and my two and a half year old loves putting these blocks away when he’s done with them. It’s amazing to watch him manipulate them, put them into the right places, and match the colors.

While it won’t withstand water, it withstands tearing and creasing very well. I fully expect to have to replace the box with something else at some point, but it’s the only “original packaging” that has made it for more than a week or two in my son’s playroom. He’s even known to break plastic and bend metal.

BOTTOM LINE

Twig blocks are an instant classic with a heirloom feeling about them. They’re timeless in design and in quality. These are a toy that can easily last your child from toddlerhood through high school, and be passed on to the next generation as well.

They’ve been added to my “must have” list of toys, and to the list of toys that I intend to keep around for if my children ever have children of their own.

(It might.. Just might.. have something to do with the fact that these blocks always end up back in the box. My son considers it a puzzle and loves putting them away. There’s a lot to be said for toys that carry an intrinsic motivation for putting them away at the end of the day! Brilliance.)