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MindWare Marble Circuit Junior was a great find at a local garage sale. I had never heard of this game, but it turned out to be perfect for my 2-year-old and 4-year-old to play with. The puzzle cards made them think, and the colorful pieces helped keep them engaged.
How Marble Circuit Junior is Played
The game is very simple but still challenging for children under 5 years of age. Given the age range this game is geared too please be careful since the marbles can be choking hazards.
To begin the game lock the six marbles at the track with the plastic slide piece included. This part proved challenging to my 3 year old daughter but with some practice she was able to slide the piece into place.
After the marbles are set select a puzzle card. The puzzles get more challenging as you progress through the deck. As you can see below the puzzle card shows you how to setup the board. In the case of puzzle 1, four of the pieces start in place and the child is responsible for placing the other two pieces. The puzzle pieces cannot rotate in place and have to be placed with the flat corner on the bottom. This makes it a lot easier for children to solve the puzzles.
When placing the remaining two puzzle pieces they need to figure out how to get the right number of marbles in each of the bottom four sections. Once they think they have the right solution they pull the slide to release the marbles and count to see if they were correct. The solutions to each puzzle are listed on the back of each card.
Set a timer and challenge older kids to complete as many puzzles as they can before the timer goes off.
Check out the video below, where we completed a couple of puzzles. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel, Marble Run Expert to see all of our favorite marble run builds.
