Since a very early age, our oldest son has proven to be easily absorbed in anything that involves building. Although he likes creating on paper, he very much loves creating things in 3-dimensions. We have all types of building sets in our home in order to encourage him to continue to explore. We also like to continue to challenge him. With most things, he prefers them to be easy, but building sets are an exception.
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These new building block sets from Hasbro called KRE-O Transformers are offered for children ages 6 to 14. All the sets have varying recommended age groups. For example, the KRE-O Transformers Sideswipe is recommended for children ages 7 to 14 years old, but the basic KRE-O Transformers Bumblebee is recommended for ages 6 to 12. Overall, I think the assembly is similar, but the difficulty level is based on how many pieces each set contains.
The Sideswipe set included 220 KRE-O blocks and 2 KREON figures. I was surprised that our nearly 8 year old son could finish building the car in one sitting. It took him at least an hour and a half to do so while following the illustrated step-by-step instruction booklet. He did not attempt to take the car apart in order to build the robot version in the same sitting. This was partly due to his being tired, but he also wanted to enjoy the car that took him so long to build. He also has stuck to the building plans in each booklet for both the vehicle and the robot versions and has not tried to create something different on his own.
What our son thought about his first KRE-O Transformers building sets:
"When we opened it, I thought it would take a long time to build. The red sports car took me about an hour and a half to build. Bumblebee took me about 15 minutes to build. Bumblebee in robot mode took me about 10 minutes. I like building with KRE-O because it's like building with LEGOs. Bumblebee's directions were confusing. I think it was because I might have placed a brick in the wrong spot. My Dad undid a few steps and he tried to rebuild it to see what went wrong. The only trouble I had with Sideswipe was that I couldn't get a brick down where it was suppose to go. My Mom couldn't do it, but my Dad could do it. Sideswipe turned out to be pretty cool."
We were so impressed by the enjoyment our son experienced playing with his KRE-O sets that we purchased one for a birthday gift for his classmate. The KRE-O blocks are compatible with the other leading brand of building blocks. I am looking forward to seeing what creations our son will come up with when he ventures into mixing the KREO sets with each other and with other building blocks we own.
You can purchase KRE-O Transformer building sets from HasbroToyShop.com, Amazon.com, Toys"R"Us, Target, Walmart, and other major retailers of Hasbro toys.
Thank you to Hasbro for providing complimentary product samples for us to base this review upon.
A portion of this review was written by:
