10 Educational Magnetic Tile Activities

I am sharing 10 of our favorite educational magnetic tile activities with you today. I am a huge fan of open-ended play in our house and that is predominantly the types of toys we have. I like to invest in toys that will be used by my son for many years and will last through multiple kids. Good magnetic tiles are with the investment that is worth it. Honestly, when it comes to magnetic tiles their uses are endless.

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Benefits of Magnetic Tiles

• Encourages cognitive development, spatial awareness, hand-eye coordination, fine and gross motor skills
• Simultaneously aids in independent play and teamwork
• Provides problem-solving skills
• Increases language and vocabulary
• Encourages creativity and imagination
• Learn STEM concepts

Why we love Connetix Tiles

I was beyond excited to get my son magnetic tiles for his second birthday. I knew he would love them but I also knew I would love them. We got him Magna-Tiles because that’s what we saw in the stores and everyone talked about them. They are the OG of magnetic tiles. Magna Tiles are definitely on the more expensive side of things but I wanted to invest in good quality because I knew we would play with these for years. We loved them, we played with them constantly, and they are great.

When searching around for my son’s 3rd birthday present I saw an ad for Connetix magnetic tile ball run and I knew we had to get it. Connetix magnetic tiles are roughly the same price point as Magna-Tiles (Connetix is a couple of dollars cheaper) but their quality far exceeds all other brands.

Connetix Tiles are High Quality

Connetix Tiles are made with BPA, lead, and phthalate-free ABS food-grade plastic. My son’s favorite thing is for me to build a big tower and for him to smash it down. We have never had any cracks or chips in our tiles.

And don’t worry you do not need to get rid of any of your other tiles. Connetix tiles are compatible with all the other tiles on the market.

Connetix Tiles are Strong

I didn’t realize how weak the Magna-Tiles magnets were until we got the Connetix ball run. Now don’t get me wrong Magna-Tiles are great. They have a ton of different options and you can easily buy them in stores. But for the price point, I would pick Connetix tiles hands down and I won’t buy any other brand.

Connetix Tiles have a unique bevel making them more scratch resistant and arguably the strongest on the market. Their magnetics are really strong but not so strong that my son can’t take out a tile without everything falling over.

Connetix Tiles are Beautiful

Connetix tiles are honestly really pretty. They have so many color options. They just came out with a pastel and clear set that I really want now.

Check out Connetix Tiles here!

Magnetic Tile Activities

I had so much fun putting together these magnetic tile activities. We love to build with them obviously and use our imagination but my son was really excited to use them differently. He has become very interested in counting and learning his letters so I wanted to teach them in a new way. Your options are honestly endless for ways to use them to teach letters and numbers but here are 10 magnet tile activities we did.

Disclaimer: If you would like to write directly on the magnetic tiles for the activities you can use a chalk pen or whiteboard marker to write all of the letters and numbers. Please use with caution and test in a small area beforehand. I accidentally use a paint pen (I clearly can’t read) and was able to remove everything off the magnetic tiles with nail polish remover. Just FYI if you make my mistake. Using painter’s tape would also work perfectly for writing on the tiles.

Number and Counting Magnetic Tile Activities

Number and Letter Order

For this activity, we practiced placing letters and numbers in order. Write out numbers or letters on the magnetic tiles, mix them up, and have your child put them in order. Hiding them around the house would also be really fun.

Counting

For this magnetic tile activity, we practiced counting. I made boxes with a number on the outside. First, we named the number. Then my son placed the correct number of pompoms in each box. We counted as we went.

How many magnetic tiles fit on the line?

For this activity, I placed different lengths of painter’s tape on the carpet. My son then lined up magnetic tiles and we counted how many tiles long the tape is. This activity would also be great to do the fridge or another magnetic surface you have.

Letter and Spelling Magnetic Tile Activities

Upper Case and Lower Case Matching

This activity is pretty self-explanatory. We matched the upper case and lower case letters. You can hide the tiles around the house.

Objects that start with the letter

For this activity, I created boxes with a letter on them and we added objects from our house that started with that letter. For example, A is for ambulance and a very old apple that was found in the back of our fridge.

Match the Letter Car Garage

This activity was the reason I came up with so many other educational activities. I’m in a magnetic tiles Facebook group and the “car garage” has been going around. I loved the idea because my son is car and monster truck obsessed. He is also super into letters right now so I thought we would combine them.

First I wrote the alphabet on dot stickers. I did one set with upper case and one set with lower case. I built a “parking garage” and placed the lowercase letter in it. One in each parking place. I then placed an upper-case letter on each car.

This parking garage became the “mall”. So we went space by space and matched the upper case and lower case letters. I would say let’s find A and then make the sound of the letter. After that, I would name off some things that start with the letter. “A needs to go to the mall to buy apples, aardvarks, and an airplane.”

Word Creation with Magnetic Tiles

My son has been very interested in how to spell and what letters are. So I wrote the alphabet on all of his magnetic tiles. Then I wrote a list of very simple words. We matched the letters, said the letter sounds, and then read the word.

If you are past the simple letter sounds you can do letter combinations like er, ow, oo, and so on.

Shape and Color Activities

This was my attempt at a fish. My son told me it looks more like a rocket and I can respect that. For this activity, I made flat designs on a piece of paper and traced around the tiles. My son then completed the puzzle by matching up the shapes. To make this more difficult you could just trace around the outside of the shape and they have to figure out how the pieces fit back together.

Complete the Pattern with Magnetic Tiles

We really liked this complete the pattern activity and did it for quite a while. There are multiple ways to do this one. Some of the ones we did were by color (orange, green, orange, green), by size (big triangle, small triangle, big triangle), and shape ( square, triangle, square).

Color Matching

This activity is great for learning colors. You can use any manipulatives you have. We used Hotwheels because my son is Hotwheel obsessed. It is very easy to set up. My son helped me make single-colored boxes and then we put the cars in the corresponding boxes.

If you are looking for more magnetic tile activities

I love this snack-time learning activity from Raising Less Chaos!

If you have older kids check out this awesome way to teach your kids coding!

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