Mini Magnetic Tiles, 40-Piece Travel Set for Kids

Forty translucent tiles, fourteen squares and twenty-six triangles, that click together edge to edge and hold. Each square is 1.5 in (3.75 cm) across, a quarter of a standard three-inch tile, which is the whole point: the set lives in a flat metal tin the size of a paperback and goes wherever you go.

The tin is the part parents talk about. It opens flat, the base is printed with coloured slots so every tile has a place to go back to, and a child can put the set away without help and carry it out himself. Nothing rolls under the booth.

Inside there is also a card of build ideas, drawn not written: a boat, a plane, a whale, a rocket, a house, a cat. It is what a child reaches for when he has run out of his own ideas, and it is why the set works for a four-year-old and still works for an eight-year-old.

No batteries, no screen, no sound. The manufacturer rates the set 3 years and up, and we keep that rating: the tiles hold small magnets, and small magnets belong with children old enough to leave them out of their mouth.