Going ahead with our series about importance of creative play and #BuildWithHotWheels, today I have something super fun and informative to share with all of you.  If you haven’t yet read my article#1 in this series, you can read it right here.

They say “creative mind is the playful mind!” And that is what our children are born with – a naturally inquisitive and imaginative mind. We just need to facilitate their creativity by giving them tools / educational toys and a playful environment to bloom!

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Constructive, purposeful, open-ended and unstructured toys like Building Blocks, Racing tracks etc help children develop:

  • Fine motor skills
  • Hand-eye coordination
  • Imaginative thinking
  • spatial skills
  • Explorative skills
  • Language skill
  • Team building and social skills
  • Problem solving ability
  • Recognition of cause and effect
  • STEM benefit (Creative play helps the child to learn playfully by combining Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)

Construction and building activities take children to a different world! They can pretend to be a scientist or an engineer! They can keep building, rebuilding, constructing and destructing in a way that stimulates their creative streak. And this has a very positive impact on their childhood, and is something that definitely is going to be a part of their creative life even when they grow up. I mean think about it – we still remember those creative games we played as little children. Those endless play possibilities with stones and blocks and what not. These are the memories that will be cherished for life!

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Getting most out of creative play:

  1. As the name suggests – keep it creative, keep it open-ended! Let the child explore the endless possibilities of this unstructured play!
  2. Participate with the child – This is a great way to sit down with your children and join in the fun. You can even demonstrate to the child how to build a structure, and then let them have a go at it. Or if the child insists, you can build it together!
  3. Challenge kids with interesting tasks – You can give a theme or a fun task to your child, and let him accordingly build the structure. Children love tasks that they can win and excel at, so tap that competitive spirit in a positive way!
  4. Encourage imagination and fantasy – Imagination has no limit. Let the child experience this through play! Let them build sand castles and space units and all sort of imaginary things from piles of blocks, tracks, etc!
  5. Incorporate DIYs – It is always so much fun when you can add a spark of DIY to your child’s play space / games! Make use of easily available items like rocks, scrap papers, tissue papers, stones, straws, washi tapes etc to enhance your child’s creative building projects! Best part about DIY is you can totally involve your child in the making process – be it cutting or gluing!

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With all that influx of knowledge about creative play, let me quickly move on to one more amazing DIY project that #BuildWithHotWheels has come up with – this time it’s Lava Blaze time with Hot Wheels Tracks!

Super creative DIYSter Rob shows how you can create an epic trail of Hot Wheels Track amidst conical mountains of Lava and vapour!

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Rob has cleverly used the Hot Wheels Power Booster Kit along with two additional track sets as a foundation for this structure! To create a volcano scene, Rob has used straws, acrylic colours, cardstock papers, newspaper, sticky tapes, masking tape, white glue and mount board. The result is so realistic and mind blowing that you have to see it for yourself! Just click on the image below to watch the video.

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I am sure after watching this video you will be so thrilled to try this at home with your children! As they say, possibilities are endless so you can try your own versions and DIYs too! And if you give it a try feel free to send us a picture!

Well, that is not all for this blog post, I have a fun news for you! If you want to meet Rob the Builder in person and witness his creativity, now is the chance! And by now I mean today! You’ve seen Rob build Epic stuff on YouTube, but now you can watch DIYster Rob recreate the magic at Phoenix Market City, Kurla Mumbai today 13th November, 5 pm to 7 pm! Rob is going to take his creative genius to Phoenix Market City, where he will use more than 50 Hot Wheel track set boxes and create one massive track installation which will comprise of different terrains – City, Desert, Volcano, Underwater & Forest! A never achieved before feat, this installation will definitely be awe – inspiring and a must-dekko!

That’s not all, children can also interact and meet with Rob between 5-7pm today (they also are going to have a photo booth!).

So if you in Mumbai don’t miss this chance to witness a LIVE Hot Wheels world built by Rob.

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