In the past you know we haven’t been too enthusiastic about gender specific building sets. In a perfect world girls and boys would be given gender free sets to explore and play with right from the start. Unfortunately, there is still a gender divide in construction toys. That said, we really like the new Pinklets- The Fairy Garden by Supertstructs (Waba Fun $39.95). Somehow the fairy theme is not as troubling as the construction sets of the 90s that focused on building malls and nurseries. I know I’ve written about this before but it is a subject close to my heart. The research indicates that kids that work with blocks and construction sets develop so many valuable skills: fine motor, problem solving, spatial relationships, visual discrimination, ability to work in sequence…you get the idea.

The moral: It is really important that boys and girls have opportunities to use both open-ended construction sets as well as model building where they are asked to follow directions. So if a pink building set makes this type of play more engaging for your child–go for it.