Cool Construction and Building Sets for Girls

If you're looking for a special gift for a little girl in your life, step away from the princess dolls and fashion sets for a moment and try choosing from some cool building sets for girls. Yes, girls can build things quite well, so why not encourage them to do so? You may just find a budding engineer on your hands because these sets encourage STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning.

Toy marketing has, until recently, been doing kids a huge disservice. By packaging certain toys to be more attractive to one gender than the other, companies have added to gender stereotyping issues. When shopping for toys for my daughter, I used to be frustrated to see the girls toys on the pink side and the boys toys on the blue side. Let me ask you - how many construction toys have you seen on the girl's side and how many cooking sets have you seen on the boy's?

The gender differences with respect to building toys become obvious after the age of 4 or 5 when the kids get older and are able to do more complicated things. That's when you see building sets that so obviously cater to a boy's love for cars, trucks and transformers.

Well, I'm happy to say that slowly but surely, we are starting to see building sets for girls. Girls love to pretend play, especially with toys that they can weave a story around. So a toy that can provide that and also challenge her problem solving abilities and teaches her basic engineering principles and spacial recognition is a good toy in my book.

Without further ado, here are my top 6 picks for the best building toys for girls.

First released in November 2013, Goldie Blox toys are construction and story book sets aimed at helping girls get interested in problem solving using simple engineering principles and spacial skills. It has been a hit since then and makes an excellent gift for girls.

A kid inventor called Goldie and her gang of friends try solve simple engineering problems using a toolkit. Kids can read along or parents can read to them while they solve problems using the included design templates.

There are currently 2 sets with another one on the way. The first set is Goldie Blox and the Spinning Machine, which is shown here. It comes with a peg board, 5 wheels, 5 blocks, 10 axles, 5 washers, a crank and a ribbon. The aim is to help Goldie spin her 5 animal friends in specific ways by winding the ribbon around the pegs in different configurations to make a belt drive. There are 14 different templates you can use.

The second and newest set is Goldie Blox and the Parade Float.

This set is recommended for kids aged 6 to 9.

If a girl wants a dollhouse as a gift, why not take it one step further and get a wired one that she can put together in different configurations? Who knows - maybe she'll want to be an architect when she grows up!

The Roominate collection of toys features modular building pieces that can be put together from one or more of the kits to create fully furnished rooms. Electrical circuits can be combined to make things like the lights, fans, and even an elevator work.

Using multiple kits like the Deluxe Roominate shown here, a girl can build her entire dream house just the way she likes it by stacking and combining rooms. There is also a smaller set called the Basic Roominate, and there are additional packs that contain specific types of pieces to grow any house.

If you'd rather just get her one big house with lots of modular rooms and pieces included, there's the Dream House Architect set. She can build lots of different houses with this one!

The Deluxe Roominate set contains 4 pieces of walls and floors, 48 modular building pieces in 3 pleasing colors, 16 orange connectors, 1 motor, 1 light, 2 switches, stickers, string, felt, shiny tape, colored paper and 2 battery packs that need a total of 4 AAA batteries that are not included. All these pieces can make up one great room.

Recommended for ages 6-12.

Lego Friends is one of the hottest of the brand's toys this year as it is the only line that is especially designed for girls in the age range between 6 and 12. The Friends range features 5 main mini doll characters - Olivia, Andrea, Mia, Stephanie and Emma with their friends and pets in their hometown of Heartlake City.

Each toy is set in either a specific part of the town or in a vacation spot and the friends go about the jobs or participate in their hobbies. All the blocks are compatible with those from other Lego lines.

In Olivia's house, she lives with her parents and pet cat in a house that features a living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, a rooftop patio and a barbecue and garden area. Every room is furnished down to the last detail and the kitchen sports essential utensils, gadgets and appliances.

In addition to building up the house in different ways, girls will also have fun remodeling and redecorating it.

A little known fact about Lincoln Logs is that the manufacturer, K'nex, makes a building set just for girls!

The Little Prairie Farmhouse is is a 115 piece set features real wood logs and colorful accessories and figures, like a farm girl, ponies, storage containers, etc.

After building the farmhouse, a girl can have fun going about her farm chores, like feeding and training the ponies.

This set is recommended for kids aged 3 years and up.

Geomag is the toy company that makes magnetic construction toys that consist of magnetic connecting sticks and/or panels.

The pink panel construction set consists of pink, magenta and white triangular and square panels in assorted sizes, magnetic sticks and non-magnetic steel spheres, and two graphic panel inserts.

Using these pieces, there is an endless limit as to what a child can create from her imagination. And yes, even houses!

The recommended age for this toy is 5 to 15.

While most magnetic building toys appeal mostly to boys, there is one kind that is gender neutral - magnetic tiles. The tile pieces come in either clear or solid plastic and are very colorful. There are little magnets set into the edges, and girls and boys can build almost anything from them depending on how many pieces the set has. Think of these as open ended building sets for girls and boys.

There are quite a few manufacturers that make these toys, so here's a handy guide to some of the most popular magnetic tile sets.