Mario meets K’Nex

By Mir
December 8, 2012

So if your kid is really into building toys like K’Nex, but lately you haven’t been able to pry him off of Mario Kart on the Wii, take heart—there’s an entire line of Nintendo Mario Kart-themed K’Nex just for you.

Unfortunately, like most K’Nex, it’s kind of expensive.

Fortunately, ’tis the season for price drops. Right now at Amazon, these sets are available on the cheap, and I would probably bet my dog that we’ll be seeing some more price drops as the month progresses (and you know how I feel about my dog!):
Nintendo Toads Side-Stepper Challenge Building Set for $7.99 (77% off)
Nintendo Diddy Kong And Standard Kart Building Set for $4.50 (70% off)
Nintendo Luigi And Standard Kart Building Set for $4.49 (50% off)

If you like these, keep an eye out—there’s a ton of these sets to be had, and you could potentially end up filling a room with the Mario Kart universe. Heh.

6 Comments

  1. Lovely Mir and Lovely WN readers,

    I have a 5YO boy and have not yet introduced him to Lego or K’Nex because he gets very easily frustrated. Does anyone have any advice on what is a good age to try these toys? He’s pretty smart, has decent but not spectacular fine motor skills, but gets *furious* when he doesn’t do something correctly. And after his tantrum, he wants nothing more to do with the toy or activity. I’m not sure if this is an age, boy, personality, or combo thereof thing.

    Thanks for any advice!

    Mandy

  2. Lovely Mandy,

    My experience (and having a boychild with similar issues) is that LEGO is more forgiving than K’Nex. I would start with a set like a generic bucket that isn’t designed to build something specific; let him get used to it without aiming for a specific end result.

    FWIW, the good news is that we did years of OT for my kiddo’s fine motor issues, and nothing helped as much as just letting him play with LEGO! 🙂

  3. Mir,
    Do you foresee any Ninjago sets going on sale? Toys r us had a set down to 19.99 but they were gone by the time I made it to the store. Is “Ninjago” only Lego, by the way, or are there other products that depict the characters/theme?
    Thanks!
    Sonia

  4. Sonia, we’ll see some discounts in the next couple of weeks, but it won’t be anything huge, I don’t think. The of-the-moment toys, you’re lucky to find 20-30% off. But as the price drops are starting, who knows what we’ll see.

    Ninjago is a licensed LEGO thing, I’m pretty sure. There’s clothing, though, and some books. We’re likely to see another price dip on the Ultimate Ninjago Sticker Book in the next week or two, and right now the Ninjago Character Encyclopedia is right around $10, close to its best Amazon price ever (and that one comes with an exclusive minifig, too).

  5. Thank you, lovely Mir. With this and so much more, I’ll take your advice. A generic tub of LEGOs it is.

  6. At 5yo, if you’re concerned, I’d go with a tub of duplos (the larger size legos). We have a ton, and my 7yo still loves playing with them. Duplos are more satisfying, I think, because they’re bigger, so you can build bigger things more easily.

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