Playing with PlayMais

Last week the children received this…..

Intrigued? I was!

This is PlayMais and it is quite unlike anything we have played with before. It is light, bright and colourful and feels like a cross between that polystyrene packaging material and maize baby snacks! It’s very versatile and can be used across all ages as it is a 100% safe and natural product as it’s made from maize and food colouring.

There are a wide range of sets available, from mosaics to worlds to boxes simply crammed full of PlayMais. Which does bring me to the first thing I’d say about PlayMais – the boxes really are full to the brim, be warned! I think it’s brilliant that they have used every bit of available space within their boxes and it also makes them exciting for kids to open as they are practically spilling over. The basic boxes come with an ideas booklet with step by step creations, a sponge and a knife for cutting the PlayMais into smaller pieces.

The kids emptied a mosaic box over the table and got cracking on creating some pictures. They are nice and simple to follow, as as you can see, the colours and positioning of each piece is detailed on the card so the children just need to place a piece on top.

To bond the PlayMais together, just a touch of water is needed. I was actually surprised by how little water they would need to stick together, they do need to just be damp. The small orange sponge that you see pictured above came within our mosaic set, and I simply wet it, squeezed off the excess water and popped it down for the kids to use and that was all that was needed.

At 6, Boo loved doing this, and concentrated on it until her picture was complete. Little Man, at 3, enjoyed having a go at it and fully understood what he needed to do, but his attention wandered after a while and he chose to just play with the PlayMais.

Whilst the kids were creating, I found myself running my hands through it and I might have made a little person myself! It’s difficult to resist having a go and I wanted to see how well 3D shapes would hold together. It turns out that they hold well, as that little caterpillar there was then played with by Little Man for quite some time and actually remains in tact!

I see PlayMais as being a brilliant activity to span all ages and abilities. It is very tactile, safe, and can be adapted to create many 2D pictures and 3D models. The PlayMais can be borken in half, cut into smaller pieces, rolled into balls, flattened into rectangular shapes – whatever you need it to do to help you to make the model that you are aiming for. I had a little look at the Instagram PlayMais hash tag when I shared some the other day and I found myself absorbed by the many brilliant and fun creations over there – do take a look!

The verdict? We now love PlayMais here!

I do now have a PlayMais bundle available for one of my lucky readers. To be in with a chance of winning it, please enter using the rafflecopter below. The competition closes 16th May 2016 at 12am and is open to UK entrants only. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What do you think of PlayMais?

Disclosure: We received this FOC for the purposes of this post, though all words and opinions remain my own

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