Our fascination with magnets of course began with trains.

Esther and William soon learned that they could buffer up their engines to other engines, coaches and trucks. It was not long before they realised they could also link them up to spoons and other household objects made of metal.

Soon after this they learned about attracting and repelling as they realised trains could only link up a certain way round.

Through trains the curiosity began and over the last few weeks and months we have been taking our discoveries further and further using a range of products and toys.

The first being this Magnetic fishing game from BigJigs.

The Bigjigs wooden fish tank is filled with creatures from the sea. Esther is particularly fond of the pink seahorse and William loves the baby seal. Each of the wooden sea creatures has a small metal circle allowing it be fished out of the tank by the magnetic fishing rods. This is a great game for developing fine motor skills including hand/eye coordination.

Esther and William love fishing out the fish and putting them back to try again. They have learned the names of lots of different sea animals through playing this game.

Esther and William often play with the fishing game alone but they also like playing together and racing each other to see who can capture the most creatures from the tank.

The game is well made and is quick and easy to put together and play. It is something that Esther and William can use confidently and independently. It is a game they go back to time and time again. They also like to use the fishing rods to go around the house testing out lots of different things to see which ones are magnetic.

We were sent this game to review as part of our mission as Play Patrol Agents for BigJigs.

For Christmas, William was given some GeoMags from Father Christmas. We love playing with them. All of us. They are great for exploring how magnets behave and are also a wonderful way of identifying and making shapes.

We keep our GeoMags, which we keep mistakenly calling Magnetix, in a large Paella pan. This metallic pan provides a great base constructing on. It also photographs really well and looks quite spacey. Esther and William adore anything to do with space and planets at the moment.

The first time we played with our GeoMags we made a space forest and with PlusPlus we made little aliens to play among the trees.

We often have a mix of free and directed play. I love watching Esther and William constructing with GeoMags.

Often I will make something such as a fence or a line of people waiting for a space rocket and then Esther and William will build on my initial idea. Sometimes I will suggest things like seeing how many metal balls each magnetic pole can hold.

We have tried to make different standing objects and also create 2D pictures. I am always amazed at how long they will play and explore and how focused they will remain for such long periods of time.

Through our magnet construction play we have been learning about balance, weight, forces such as push and pull, making patterns, making predictions and we have also just been having a lot of fun!

William especially liked it when he remembered that metal spoons go well with magnets! He used spoons of all shapes and sizes to link up with the magnets. He had a wonderful time while Esther tried to see how many of the little silver balls she could balance on each spoon.

We had even more fun together when, inspired by Ghostwritermummy, we added magnetic marbles to the mix!

TTS is a company I am familiar with, as most teachers are, I also know it because they sell my husband’s animation software alongside many many more fab products for learning.

I bought some magnetic marbles, magnetic wands, sorting trays, colour sorting bowls, jelly stones and a few more bits.

The magnetic marbles are wonderful for developing fine motor skills and learning about magnets. They are a great way to practice sorting colours and making patterns. They are great fun to manipulate and can be used in conjunction with so many other things such as magnetic letters and numbers and magnetic wands and, GeoMags.

To begin with I gave Esther and William each a packet of the marbles and a couple of the wands, and I watched them play.

After a while I encouraged them to have a go at making shapes and patterns and I introduced the coloured sorting bowls. We talked about different shades of colours and the best match for colours for which there was not an exactly matching bowl.

When we introduced the GeoMags Esther and William remembered the space forest we had made and instead of using the metal balls used the magnetic marbles. We called these lollipop trees and imagined the colourful characters that would live and play among them.

As well as learning and practical play, developing skills and vocabulary our marvellous magnets have also allowed us to create a whole new level of imaginary play.

Such simple play things with so much potential for hours, days, weeks, months and years of play.

And one of the simplest things, from BigJigs, the magnetic fishing rods that are fabulous with GeoMags and the magnetic marbles!

So when things are fractious or we need a focused five minutes, we get the magnets out and hang our sign,

Gone Fishing!

We have lots more magical magnetic moments to share.

Hope you have enjoyed this taster of some of the fun we can have with the wonder of marvellous magnets.

How do you use yours?

You can buy the BigJigs Wooden Fishing Game from Amazon for £10.49