I had heard about Goldie Blox last year from my sister Kara, a mother of two girls herself. I am sure many moms of girls out there can agree that Legos and other building toys are great but almost always geared towards boys. Goldie Blox are created by Debbie Sterling, an engineer who was bothered by how few women there were in the field. She decided that she wanted to change that and became obsessed with creating a building toy that would introduce young girls to the world of engineering at a young age. I think she has succeeded!
As a mother of a creative and spirited little girl who wants to be a butterfly or a violin when she grows up, I love the idea of introducing her to a world of possibilities when it comes to choosing a career path that makes her happy. Whether she becomes a butterfly or an engineer, I just want her to know that she can be whatever she wants to be as long as she works hard.
As on occupational therapist, I love there is a toy I can bring into my office and play with my girls who lack confidence and a belief that they can be whatever they want to when they grow up. In addition to working on a million occupational therapy goals, I believe these construction toys will build self-esteem and confidence in these amazing little girls I work with. Some of the goals that can be worked on are building fine motor strength and coordination, improve visual motor and visual perceptual skills, improve motor planning and improve bilateral coordination skills. The best part of this is that they can have fun while working on those skills.
Below, you will see a couple more pictures and the toy description taken right from the Goldie Blox website. I will be back after Christmas with a complete review and talk more about the specific occupational therapy goals that can be focused on but I was too excited about this product after watching the wonderful video that I had to share. I can't wait to see what Quinn comes up with when playing with them. I can already picture hours of fun and building ahead of us this winter.
Happy building friends! If you have used the Goldie Blox, I would love to hear from you and about your experiences working with kids who have fine motor or visual motor/perceptual/spatial issues. Do you have suggestions on how to make this a successful activity for them? I am always a click away and loving hearing from you all!
At GoldieBlox, our goal is to get girls building. We’re here to help level the playing field in every sense of the phrase. By tapping into girls' strong verbal skills, our story + construction set bolsters confidence in spatial skills while giving young inventors the tools they need to build and create amazing things.
In a world where men largely outnumber women in science, technology, engineering and math...and girls lose interest in these subjects as early as age 8, GoldieBlox is determined to change the equation. Construction toys develop an early interest in these subjects, but for over a hundred years, they've been considered "boys' toys". By designing a construction toy from the female perspective, we aim to disrupt the pink aisle and inspire the future generation of female engineers.
We believe there are a million girls out there who are engineers. They just might not know it yet. We think GoldieBlox can show them the way.
