The Lab Academy
Magnetic Tiles
Build Smarter. Play With Purpose.
A hands-on guide to getting the most out of magnetic tiles — with the science behind why they work.
A hands-on guide to getting the most out of magnetic tiles — with the science behind why they work.
Open-ended building grows with your child. Here's what to try by age.
Magnetic tiles contain small, powerful magnets and are made for ages 3 and up, with adult supervision for younger builders. Swallowed magnets are a medical emergency — seek care immediately if ingestion is suspected. Always check tiles for cracks and keep away from anyone who still mouths toys.
The leap from lying-flat shapes to standing structures builds spatial thinking.
Now they're solving problems: what makes a structure strong?
Quick video guides from The LAB. More added over time.
Why open-ended magnetic building is more than just play.
Fitting shapes in 2D and 3D builds mental rotation, folding, and perspective-taking — the foundation for geometry and problem-solving.
Kids explore geometry, magnetism, balance, gravity, and structural stability firsthand — hands-on physics and engineering.
Open-ended building rewards planning, trial-and-error, and persistence — executive-function skills that transfer to the classroom.
Building together grows spatial vocabulary, storytelling, and collaboration when kids play side by side.
Research links stronger early spatial skills to later success across science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.
The research library we build on — grouped by topic, with links you can check yourself. We add to this as new work is published.
Built specifically around magnetic-tile play: mother-child pairs built together while researchers examined how the spatial words mothers used (like “flip,” “rotate,” “turn it over”) related to children's mental-rotation performance.
Read the study (DOI) →A review of how construction toys — magnetic tiles included — offer unique ways to build spatial skills like mental folding, rotation, and perspective-taking, and how that feeds into STEAM learning.
Read on PubMed Central →In 3-year-olds, skill at copying a block structure predicted early math ability — evidence that hands-on spatial building and math learning are linked from a young age.
Read on PubMed Central →A randomized trial: preschoolers given a semi-structured block-play program showed gains in math and executive-function skills versus a control group — with benefits notable for children from underserved communities.
View the study →Mothers randomly coached to use spatial thinking during block play used more spatial language — and their children produced more spatial language too. Adult guidance matters.
Read on PubMed →Kindergartners who did block-building activities — especially wrapped in a story context — improved their spatial-visualization skills more than a control group.
Read on ERIC →A long-term study: how well 4-year-olds built with blocks predicted their math achievement years later — into grades 3, 5, 7, and high school.
Read on ERIC →The complexity of how 3-year-olds built with blocks predicted their spatial skills at ages 4–5 — more support for building play as an early spatial-development driver.
Read on PubMed Central →Parent-child pairs building toward a specific goal used far more spatial language than free play — a practical case for giving kids a target to build toward.
Read the study →The more advanced preschoolers' block constructions were, the richer and more complex their spatial language became during play.
Read the study →A meta-analysis of 217 studies found spatial skills are highly trainable, the gains last, and they transfer to new tasks — the scientific backbone for why spatial play is worth doing.
Read on PubMed →A note on the evidence: the Ralph et al. (2020) study used magnetic tiles directly. The rest study block/construction play and spatial training more broadly — the same family of open-ended building toys and skills. Brand-specific randomized trials are still limited industry-wide, and researchers call for more targeted study. Every link above points to a real, checkable source. We share the honest state of the science — not hype.
Science-backed play, STEAM learning, martial arts, and enrichment for kids in Easton, MD.
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