About nine months ago we noticed that our daughter got enjoyment out of putting things in boxes. She would take any object that she could get her hands on and put it into a box that we let her play with. We got a kick out of this so we told several of our family members. Well, several days passed and my mother-in-law came to my house with the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Museum ABC Nesting Blocks for my daughter.


The nesting Blocks are an educational toy for ages two and up and comes in a box with letters, pictures, and the product name on it. The box has a rope handle for carrying. Inside the box is the set of nesting blocks. They hallow cardboard boxes and all but one has an opening on the bottom side. These cardboard pieces are covered (on the outside) with glossy paper that has pictures and letters on them. They are all cubed in shape. The largest one is 5.5 inches cubed and the smallest one measures 1.5 inches cubed. The smallest box is also the only one that has all six sides closed. Every box has a set of letters (a total of there letters on each per cube except the second to last one which is the YZ block). Excluding the box the nesting blocks come in, there are a total of ten of these blocks.


The smallest block is the ABC block. As I said earlier, this is the only block with all six sides closed. The rest of the blocks, up to and including the VWX follow the same pattern minus the bottom side being closed. On one side there are the letters of the Block, for example “ABC” is written out diagonally. Going around the block are the same letters, one per side. Each side it broken into four quadrants, the upper left is for the letter and the other three has three corresponding pictures. I will use the “A” side of the small block to explain. The letter “A” is in the upper left side of its side. The three pictures that correspond to the letter are all pictures of apples. Each picture is a detail of a piece of art that is in the New York Metropolitan Museum of art. One such picture is from a painting called “Women Gathering Apples” attributed to the Orchard Pinter from Greece, circa 460 B.C. On the top of all blocks is picture that represents one of the letters. The “A” block is the only block with a picture on the bottom too (all other blocks don’t have a bottom). The YZ block and the last block are the only exception to the rule. The YZ box only has two letters so there is a big picture on top and one side. The last block is covered in letters. Each side has its own set of letters and all the letters are in alphabetical order. Each letter has what it is for. Example: Q is for Queen. What this indicates is that the pictures associated with Q are all pictures and paintings of queens (just like the “A” had apples). Some of the letters has a picture with them too. There is a picture of a rose for the R line of this block.

Earlier I mentioned that the smallest block is 1.5 inches cubed. The larges is 5.5 inches cubed. All blocks are nesting blocks. This means, starting with the largest block, each block is slightly smaller than the last. Due to this pattern all the blocks fit neatly inside each other.


Finally, besides the blocks coming in the box, a pamphlet is also included. This pamphlet has all the letters. The letters is not what is important. What is is that this pamphlet has the information about each picture on each block. Each set of pictures is displayed in clockwise fashion. Knowing this makes it easy to identify each picture on each block. The information about the picture is arranged by title, artist with the life span of that artist, the material used, size, year created, who owns the or sponsored the art work, and the year it was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



As far as my daughter goes, she loves playing with the blocks. She will sit there with them and take one out of the next. At times she will also stack them. I have seen her stack up to about four blocks at once; however, this is very rare for her. She prefers to put them back inside each other. Sometimes she will carry them around the house with her. Besides being fun fro her to play with, they are also educational. These nesting bocks have helped her learn what certain object are. For example, she can identify what a queen looks like. She also can identify sever letters due to these nesting blocks.

As a parent, I think that the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Museum ABC Nesting Blocks is great. It gives my daughter great pleasure to play with them and learn form them. It gives me great pleasure to watch her enjoy these blocks. For the fun factor and the educational factor, I would highly recommend this set of nesting blocks for any child.


Thank you for reading,

Brett


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