Magnets are magic to kids and preschoolers get a fun introduction to the pieces that attract and repel in SmartMax’s new set of safari animals. My 2 and 4 year-old friends started exploring with the set of 6 animals–giraffe, lion, rhino, elephant, hippo and alligator. The soft touch front and backs to each animal click together with a middle magnetic rod. It didn’t take long for the kids to start creating variations with different colored bodies and extra rods to elongate the body as well as twisting the feet to be facing straight up. “Look, his feet are silly!” The 2 year-old started right in making sounds for his alligator “Am, am, am” and ordering around the giraffe, “Sit!” The 4 year-old looked up in the playroom and said, “Hey we can use the magnets from the tube set too!” (SmartMax Tubes) SmartMax sets are interchangeable so the kids started adding magnetic rods to the bodies until we had 3 rods and a ball connecting the giraffe, “Does this look like a slide?” and 6 rods connecting the alligator as kids started spontaneously counting the rods! Using familiar characters, kids construct, create and build stories as they animate their animals and carry on conversation, all while building language skills and learning on many levels. My friend looked up and said, “I love these, can I keep this?”