My eldest son E is very much like me. He likes to keep busy and isn’t great at sitting still doing nothing. I can guarantee that before the weekend arrives he is already asking what plans we have in store or what we are going to be doing. He LOVES it when we have a packed weekend full of activities. Mr H has had to work over the weekend over the last couple of week so we haven’t had lots planned. It’s been quite nice because I’ve been able to catch up on so many little jobs around the house and the boys have played happily about 70% of the time.

For the other 30% of the time, I’ve been keeping E busy with the Real Construction Starter Set as well as the Deluxe Workshop set. It was a great activity to get his teeth into.

The Real Construction sets are aimed at children aged 6+. The pieces are made from foam that looks like wood and the sets come with all the materials and equipment you need to be able to make various projects.

The starter set (currently priced at £10 on Amazon) includes 53 pieces and you can create up to 3 projects. The Deluxe workshop has 125 pieces to create up to 4 projects.

We started off by opening both sets but as it was a little confusing as to where to start, we decided to stick with the starter set.

E took a look at the 6 projects (each project has a difficulty rating) and chose to make the boat – he was keen to see if it would float in the bath once built. We took a look at the instructions together but soon realised that the instructions for the boat were not included in the leaflet so we had to go online to find them.

Although the set is for children aged 6+, I think it would have been useful to perhaps some include some paper templates for younger children to draw around to make these projects. The starter set doesn’t come with a ruler but the deluxe set did. However, the measurements on the ruler were in centimetres but the measurements on instructions were in millimetres which E found rather confusing so we used our own ruler instead.

I helped measure, mark and map out all the pieces we needed and E cut them out using the saw provided. Once this was done, we found it easy to follow the instructions.

E loved cutting out the pieces with the saw provided and although he needed a little help with holding pieces together whilst he used the hammer to join the pieces together he had great fun doing so.

The Real Constructions sets are a great introduction into the world of DIY. I like the fact that all the materials used are perfectly safe for children. (the tools are plastic as are the nails) so there is no chance of them hurting themselves. It’s great to get them thinking and learning how to follow step-by-step instructions. I would have preferred that all detailed instructions were included in the set without the need to have to go online for them, though.

E is already looking to making a lot of the other projects over the Christmas holidays, and with practice, I am sure his construction skills will only get better and better.

All sets available in the Real Construction range as follows:

*We received the Jakks Real Construction set for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own. This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

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