My boys love to build with blocks. We usually play with Legos, since it was the first building block brand we brought home for my first son. We have just been growing the collection. In a way, we were Lego snobs, passing by other “similar” products. But then I had the opportunity to review K’nex. And not just any K’nex – but Sesame Street K’nex. Sesame Street is HUGE in my house. My boys LOVE Elmo and Cookie Monster. We have puppets, shows and have even done the Elmo & Friends Breakfast at SeaWorld. I definitely wanted to see how “fun” and “boy-friendly” the set was.

There are four Sesame Street K’nex sets in all. The set we received featured Ernie as a police officer and it came with Elmo too. Both Elmo and Ernie are made of K’nex pieces – three per character. There is the head, body w/arms and bottom w/feet. The set is designed for children between the ages of 2 and 5. Since my boys both fall into that age group, both love building and both love Sesame Street, this was going to be a shared toy. I gave my little one Elmo as his character and the older one got Ernie. Then we started building.

Building the Police Station front was fun and relatively easy. We followed the directions, my oldest (3 years old) handing me pieces. There is a staircase, windows, door opening, stop sign and stop light. The kids immediately took to the set and were creating scenarios with their characters. Then they took apart the police station and rebuilt it to their liking. Next, they took their Legos and started connecting them with the K’nex. My jaw dropped. It was ingenious that they realized the sets worked together. Honestly, that makes me more likely to purchase more K’nex sets in the future, realizing they work with what we already own and that we are not starting from scratch. Plus, I love the characters that you can get with the K’nex sets. My oldest is requesting from Santa the set that has Cookie Monster! *hint*hint*, grandma!

The four Sesame Street Neighborhood Collection Building Sets are:

• Ice Cream Truck – Comes with Elmo. Truck has wheels to be pushed and rolled.  ($9.99)
• Police Station Building Set – comes with Elmo and Ernie ($19.99)
• 1-2-3 Brownstone Building Set – comes with Elmo and Cookie Monster ($19.99)
• Police Car Building Set – Comes with Elmo. Car has wheels to be pushed and rolled.($9.99)

The pieces are big and chunky, similar to Duplo Legos. This reduces the chance that a small child can swallow a piece, so I feel safe with my mouthy toddler playing with them. I love the K’nex because my kids were talking to me about colors, counting, re-enacting scenes, developing their hand-eye coordination, using imaginative play, using social skills and developing cognitive and problem-solving skills as they sort and build. Oh – and singing. My oldest was singing the Elmo song as he played, it was super cute.

Overall, I love everything about this set. I do want to see more sets with more characters, like the Count, Bert, Big Bird and more. I think the character sizes are great and Sesame Street really makes an impact on young children.

WIN – WIN – WIN

Right now there is a Make a K’NEXion video contest going on. All you have to do is make a video that  your child’s K’nex building skills and features your child building with select K’NEX products. Be creative, use your imagination, construct your own story – as long as the video features building with K’NEX the possibilities are endless. Official rules are available at Knex.com.

The ten best videos will be featured on KNEX.com and one winning video will receive $1,000 worth of K’NEX toys.

Contest Dates: November 4th – December 7th, 2009

To enter: Post the video on your own blog or website and submit the link along with a completed entry form (available at Knex.com) to knexvideocontest@knex.com. You can also submit a video if you do not own a website or blog, just visit the KNEX website for full details.

I would love to see your entries too! If you enter, let me know where to look!

The Mom Buzz received the Police Station Building Set from Team Mom to review. This is my opinion and thoughts on the products. To learn about other Buzzworthy Products and enter Hot Contests, be sure to look through the rest of the site.