GoldieBlox has been a firm favourite toy in our household ever since we first got to play with it when it was launched in the UK last summer. Being the first real engineering toy aimed mainly at girls I was always going to take a keen interest in it and I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen so far. We were delighted therefore to be asked to specifically review GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine as it’s probably my favourite GoldieBlox set.
The main concept behind GoldieBlox is that girls learn slightly differently from boys and as such GoldieBox features a unique story approach to getting girls to understand engineering principles and build machines using them. Each set contains a book with a story featuring Goldie and her building a machine for a specific purpose. In GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine, Goldie has been watching her dog Nacho chasing his tail round and round and she decides to make him a spinning machine so that he can twirl round all day like the ballerina in her music box.
So here’s what you get inside GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine.
Through the rhyming couplet story Goldie investigates different ways to make Nacho spin round and by the end of the story she’s managed to build a machine to spin him and her other friends. Children are encouraged to build along with Goldie and on each page there is a small separate box telling the children what to do in each stage of the build. At the end of the book there are also several other suggested builds using everything in the box – and of course children are also encourage to just come up with ideas themselves.
Little Miss C and I sat an worked our way through the book together and it was lovely to see her actually understanding the concepts as we went. When it came to actually putting the pieces together she really understood why we were doing what we were and was able to assemble most of it without any help from me. The pieces are excellently designed for little hands and don’t need too much strength to make it all go together. All the set is made to the highest quality and this is definitely a toy that will last.
Master C has also been taking a very keen interest in GoldieBlox and was very keen to have a go himself when LMC was at school. He may not be old enough to follow all the instructions yet, but he had great fun putting it all together and with a bit of help actually spinning things round.
There’s no doubt that GoldieBlox is an excellent engineering toy, and GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine is a great set that really explains the concept of a belt drive to young children and also gives them enough bits of kit that they can make some quite complex machines with it. And another beautiful thing about GoldieBlox is that you can use the pieces from all the different sets together to make an even bigger engineering creation!
Win GoldieBlox and The Spinning Machine
If you want to try GoldieBlox and The Spinning Machine for yourself then I’m delighted to say that I have a copy to give away. All you need to do is leave a comment below telling me what machine you could like to build and why and fill in the Rafflecopter widget below. Once you’ve done that you can also unlock bonus entries – just follow the instructions. Good luck!
Terms and Conditions
UK entrants over the age of 18 only.
Entrants will be submitted to the random draw.
Incomplete or Duplicate entries will be deleted.
All times are in GMT.
The giveaway ends at midnight on Wednesday 4 June 2015.
Being Mrs C is not responsible for non-delivery of prize.
Entrants must leave a means of contact: either twitter handle or email address.
Prizes must be claimed within 2 days, otherwise another winner will be selected to replace the non-claimant.
The prize is the item featured in the post, and there is no cash alternative.
Please allow 14 days for delivery.
Disclaimer: We were given a copy of GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.
We would have a go at making a roundabout for all of the little characters by putting one bobbin in the middle then attaching the rods and adding more bobbins in a cirlce around the central one. Each character would then go on each bobbin and attach the handle in the middle.
This looks like a pretty good way of teaching basic engineering. And I’m a big fan of getting girls (including my goddaughter) to realise that engineering is for them too!
And I should have said what I’d like to build and why. A snowman making machine, of course, so we can build Olafs aplenty!
The dunk tank sounds fab too. Id love to try this to help with motorskills for my little boy
Snowman making machine please because it looks like such great fun!x
I’d like to build an automatic ironer machine x
I would love to build a cash machine – it would come in very handy!
the parade float sounds like fun – would like that as it looks like something my daughter would love!
a machine that will clean the whole house when I push a button! 😛
A machine that takes clothes from the washing basket and sees it through to putting them in the draws and wardrobes completely unsupervised
a machine that does all the house work
a jam donut machine
I’d like to build a “getting the kids to bed” machine.
A Time Machine! 😛
The parade float sounds good x
parade float would be nice.x
A chocolate machine would be amazing
I’d love to be able to build a robot which does all the things I don’t want to and to help with my two kids, sometimes I feel like I need 8 arms to cope!
a machine to cook and wash for me
The Snowman making machine, looks great, Ellie would love experimenting and testing
Teleporter
The dunk tank sounds a lot of fun x
A time traveling machine so I no longer have to fly!!!
The Snowman making machine looks fantastic
Oh that’s easy, a time machine! I LOVE history so I’d be in my element visiting various points in time,witnessing important events and meeting the locals!
I would love to build my own racing car as I love cars and racing
I would build a time machine . Then i can eat cake over and over again x
snowman looks good
A machine that could do ALL of the housework. It would save me so much time.
GoldieBlox & the Dunk Tank looks fun
Snowman making machine please because I can link it to Frozen my nieces favourite movie and would be great to get her learning engineering from a young age
Goldieblox and the dunk tank as my children have a fascination with dunking things in water or slime and it would be an activity we could do together
I would love to make a machine that would go to the school and pick my kids up for me.
tidy up machine 🙂
A machine that put the children to bed and makes sure they stay there
A time machine 😀
I would love to build a laundry and cleaning machine. I would have lots more free time!
I would make a successful oven cleaning machine.
we would make a machine that irons and folds your clothes for you as this is my least favourite household chore
What a great way to teach the basics of engineering – Personally I would like to build a dog walking machine as I am not looking forward to taking the dog for his evening trek in the poring rain
A machine that picked up the kids toys and put them away
looks like you can make quite a few designs with the machine – i’d have a go at making the treadmill and see saw i think (with the kids obviously!!)
The dunk tank sounds fab ! my son would love that !
time machine
Would love a machine that automatically follows hubby around and cleans up after him….but then again I’d be out of a job! 🙂
A time machine could be great so I could get extra hours sleep by going back in time!
My nieces are very smart but also very mischievous, so I’d love to sit down with them and build the dunk tank together! The GoldieBlox products sound like a really fab idea, we had nothing like this when I was growing up so I ended up being a pure tomboy just to get my hands on the fun stuff like this, so big thanks for sharing this as I’ve shared it with their nan (who they live with) and have logged it on my own list of “future presents” for them, too!
From the Goldi blox range – Goldie Blox and the Movie Machine because I love zoetropes.
a chocolate making machine please
Not sure what I would start with but would love the opportunity to get my daughter involved
The GoldieBlox and the Parade Float sounds fun! What girl doesn’t want to be in a parade?
A housework machine
A time machine
Snowman making machine
machine that can slow the time down so I can do more with the time I have
a machine to stop time then i can get everything done
a snowman
A time machine.
A machine that alters how many hours in the day: when I need more I can press one button, and when we need less, the other 🙂
A healthy food making machine, so I could hopefully loose weight and get healthy, so much easier having it done for me x
A new house x
the parade float sounds lovely xx
The snowman machine