Back at Sweet Suite 2018 we saw the latest K’NEX Roller Coaster, the Bionic Blast. The toy, however wasn’t the star of the attraction. It was the VR viewer and app that came along with it, the Ride It app. This app lets kids and adults hop into a K’NEX Roller Coaster car and take a ride on any of the coasters that K’NEX makes, you can also make your own coasters to ride. It was something that Andrew couldn’t stop riding over and over. He loved it. So, when we got home I asked K’NEX if they would mind sending us a sample to review. They sent us one for free to build and play with. What follows are our honest opinions.
K’NEX toys are fun and challenging. This set was for ages 9-14 and in the case of my kids building abilities they definitely needed me to build the coaster. In fact, once I was “finished” I had to twist track a different way because the cars did not go the way they were supposed to go. It was a fun build but a challenging one to say the least. Once it was finished it ran pretty smoothly and you can see how it all turned out in the video below.
These are toys that we received from various toy companies for free. Opinions are our own. Amazon.com affiliate links are withing the post.
Back in 2008 we began a Christmas tradition. That year a friend of mine was having a toy drive for Christmas is for Kids, a local charity that collects toys for the area children. That first year we donated a couple of toys but then we decided that each year we would put aside some money each month so that we could make a decent toy purchase at the end of the year. That way we could give a good sized donation. Fast forward to today and we’ve been making larger and larger donations because of the work that we do through this blog. From contests to conferences and everything in between there are many toy companies that have been providing us toys each year and we give the overflow to Christmas is for Kids.
Early on Allison and I decided to involve the kids in our toy buying. We wanted to show them, from an early age that they can help people less fortunate. You may not change the world for everyone but you can start locally and help those in your immediate environment. My kids have never had any want for toys especially because of this blog. Involving Eva and Andrew in the process of selecting toys for other children is very important. This year they were fantastic in the store. Not once did they ask for any toys for themselves. The hardest thing was saying no when they choose expensive toys. I had to keep explaining that the higher the cost of the toy the less toys we could buy to help out the kids. I think we also had some lessons in math and estimating and rounding and more and also understanding how much prices are for toys came in to play as well. Andrew wanted to get a toy and thought that it was $6 but was actually $64. It gave me a chance to talk money with him.
We also recorded a video thanking many of the toy companies for sending us toys to review and some that we were not able to review but instead added to our gift donation. I wanted to recognize them here. You can see the video below. And below that a bit about the toys.
