We do not have any K’NEX at home, but whenever we go to the Rochester Museum and Science Center the kids love to use their extensive collection of them.  Not only do they have an endless supply of parts, but they have laminated sheet, after laminated sheet of different building directions.

I was worried with the older two spending so much time building that Ava might get bored and thus loud and whiny because she would want to move on.  Instead, there was a pleasant surprise in store for her.  In the pile of laminated designs, Chloe found a stack of ones that clearly had been hand made by someone.  They were one dimensional representations of different constellations with a homemade key as well.  Ava found “a horse”, which was really Leo the Lion that she wanted to complete.  Thus Ava and I sat together counting the number of each piece that we needed, then she would go find them.  After it was all put together she was very happy to wander about the area playing with her “horse”.