A Roominate Playdate

Maggie, my 5 year old loves building lately, so when we were invited to host a Roominate playdate, I jumped at the chance. She also loves setting up an decorating her dollhouse, so the Roominate sets seemed to be a great combination of building and dollhouse. Roominate are a fun, new building sets for girls. They help develop important STEM (science, technology, engineering & math) skills. The founders were noticing that many girls’ toys lag behind in the development of spatial skills, hands-on problem solving skills, and confidence with technology. So they worked together to create Roominate and aim to develop those skills. 

Their goal is for Roominate to teach:

Hands-On Problem Solving

Spatial + Fine Motor Skills

Self-Confidence

Creativity

Basic Circuitry

Maggie invited some of her girl friends over for a fun morning of trying out the Roominate sets with her! We tried: 2 Roominate Studios and 1 Roominate 3-in-1 Helicopter

To get the kids excited to try the sets, we attached a Roominate figurine to their pink Roominate tshirts. In addition to setting out the kits, I came up with a building craft for the girls to make along with their Roominate projects. I printed some buildings and city images and cut them out. The girls colored them and designed their own cities. This ended up being helpful to have on hand for them to work on while we assisted them in building (I had a friend stay to help me too). 

The girls had a blast setting up the rooms. The sets come with cute pictures of things like lamps, bedroom decor, etc to add to the rooms. They girls spent time cutting them out and taping them inside the rooms. We also set out tons of fun stickers to help in designing the rooms. 

They enjoyed using the pieces to build furniture. The sets come with a wire component that make the objects move (a fan for the bedrooms, helicopter propeller, etc). These components were very difficult and I think really suitable for much older children. We had one child there that is 6 and builds the age 7-8 Lego sets with ease, and was not able to build the Roominate helicopter. I think any child under 8 would need a lot of assistance with the wire portion of the set. 

The Roominate sets are really neat, and inspire creativity! Maggie has added her room to her dollhouse and loves building and rebuilding furniture from the pieces. They are reasonably priced for how much each set includes, and they would make fun birthday party gifts.