Action Block Sets    ages 3 years & up
Is it mechanical engineering? Kinetic Sculpture? Programming? Arranging components to create a device that does something interesting or useful - that's all of the above!   We are pleased to present these beautifully made, solid hardwood sets that encourage the development of creativity, skill in spatial and temporal relations, motor coordination, logic and analysis. Best of all, kids will return to these toys day after day, because they will be having lots of real kid fun! (We wish we had one of these to play with!!)
Made in Germany (some older inventory Made in USA)
 More on "real educational toys"                         Unit Block Sets
Ball Track
48 pieces
Age 3+
New lower price!
was $73.50 

$74.50 


Ball Track
Accessories
&
Add-ons


7 different sets
of parts to jazz up your machine or kinetic sculpture
The Ball Track set uses glass marbles and lots of ingenious parts for exciting action.
Use these sets and their accessories to create an unlimited variety of motion sequences, sound effects, and exciting action!

    Block Shoppe Home Page         Turnertoys Home Page

Almost everyone selling toys these days tries to tell us that their toys are educational.  But these action block sets are the real thing.  Children, playing and experimenting freely, inventing their own rules and structure as they go along or using no rules at all, will acquire and maintain new motor, cognitive, and creative skills when they engage in genuine play with almost any toy offered on Turnertoys.com, and especially with the ones shown on this page.
    An explicitly didactic toy is boring.  A toy with a predetermined set of goals, with a "right answer", is not a toy at all.  Play with such a "toy" is not play, but work. An automated toy holds attention for a while, but pretty soon, after it has done its thing, a child gets bored with it and moves on.  It is the toy that  requires thought and effort from a child, and rewards new efforts with new effects, that really teaches. There is a place for real, structured learning even in the life of an infant.  But such behavior is never play and shouldn't be confused with play.  
More on creative play in young children       back to top of page