Top 13 'System-Thinking' Toy Experiments to do with your Kids in 2025
As parents, we're constantly navigating a world of "Why?" Why is the sky blue? Why does a ball bounce? Why can't I have ice cream for breakfast? These questions aren't just adorable quirks of childhood; they're the first sparks of a mind trying to understand how the world works. They're trying to connect the dots, to see the hidden strings that tie everything together. This, at its core, is the beginning of system thinking.
In a world that’s more interconnected and complex than ever, raising a system thinker is like giving your child a superpower. System thinking is the ability to see the big picture—to understand that actions have reactions, that small changes can have big impacts, and that everything is part of a larger, intricate web. It's the skill that separates simple problem-solvers from true innovators. As we look towards 2025 and beyond, this isn't just a "nice-to-have" skill; it's essential for navigating future challenges in technology, the environment, and society.
But how do you teach something that sounds so... academic? The good news is you don't need flowcharts or textbooks. The best way to build these crucial neural pathways is through something your child already loves: play. By turning everyday toys into simple, hands-on experiments, you can unlock profound lessons about cause, effect, and interconnectedness. Here are 13 of our favorite "system-thinking" toy experiments to try with your kids this year.
1. The Dynamic Domino Chain Reaction
This is more than just the classic domino topple. It's a foundational lesson in linear systems and kinetic energy. The simple act of one domino falling and triggering the next is a perfect, visual representation of a cause-and-effect chain. It shows how a single, small action can initiate a long sequence of events.
To elevate this into a true system experiment, start introducing variables. What happens if you use heavier or lighter dominoes in the chain? What if you change the spacing? Encourage your child to predict the outcome. Then, introduce feedback loops and branches. Use a toy car to start the chain, have the last domino knock a ball down a ramp, which then triggers another set of dominoes. You’re no longer just building a line; you’re designing a simple machine where each component's failure or success impacts the entire system.
Pro-Tip: Ask questions like, "Where is the 'slowest' part of our system?" or "If one domino fails to fall, how can we build a 'backup plan' into our chain?" This shifts the focus from just watching them fall to actively designing and debugging a process.
2. The LEGO Gear and Pulley Machine
LEGOs are the ultimate system-building toy. While any creation is a good start, focusing on LEGO Technic pieces like gears, axles, and pulleys takes the learning to a new level. The goal is to build a simple machine that performs a task, like lifting a small toy or spinning a fan.
The magic happens when you start experimenting with the gear ratios. Show your child how a small gear turning a large gear results in slower speed but more power (torque). Conversely, a large gear turning a small gear results in higher speed. They'll physically see and feel how changing one single component in the gear train (the system) dramatically alters the final output. This is a tangible lesson in input, process, and output.
Pro-Tip: Create a "challenge card" for your child. For example: "Build a machine that can lift this toy car 10cm off the ground," or "Design a car that can travel 1 meter in under 5 seconds." These challenges require them to think about the entire system to achieve a specific outcome.
3. The Marble Run Ecosystem
A marble run is a fantastic way to visualize flow, bottlenecks, and dependencies. Each piece—the ramp, the funnel, the spinner—is a node in a system. The marble's journey is the process. A well-built marble run allows the marble to flow smoothly from start to finish.
The experiment begins when you intentionally change one piece. Swap a straight ramp for a curvy one. What happens to the marble's speed? What if you remove a supporting piece? The whole structure might become unstable, demonstrating how dependent components are on one another. You can even run multiple marbles at once to see how they interact. Do they create a traffic jam at the funnel? This is a perfect, low-stakes way to introduce concepts of resource flow and system stress.
Pro-Tip: Use a stopwatch to time the marble's run. Challenge your child to make the run faster or slower by only changing three pieces. This encourages them to identify the most influential parts of the system.
4. The Play-Doh Food Web
This simple biology experiment brings the concept of an ecosystem to life. Instead of drawing a food chain on paper, build it with Play-Doh. Create a green blob for grass (producer), a few different colored blobs for insects and rabbits (primary consumers), a snake or a fox (secondary consumer), and a hawk (tertiary consumer).
Once your mini-ecosystem is built, connect them with pieces of string to show the flow of energy (who eats whom). Now, start the experiment. What happens if a "drought" (you!) removes half of the grass? The rabbit population might suffer, which in turn affects the fox population. This visualizes the ripple effect—how a change in one part of a system can cascade and impact everything else. This is a powerful lesson in interdependence that kids can immediately grasp.
Pro-Tip: Introduce a non-native "invasive species" (a toy dinosaur, perhaps?). Ask your child, "What do you think this new animal will eat? How will that affect the other animals?"
5. The Jenga Tower Stress Test
Jenga is already a game of system integrity, but we can frame it as a scientific experiment. The tower is a structural system, and each block is a component. The system's goal is to remain stable. Every time a block is removed, the system's integrity is tested.
Instead of just playing, encourage your child to be an engineer. Ask them to predict which blocks are the most "important" for stability and which are the least. Test their hypotheses. Have them notice how removing a block from the bottom has a much bigger impact than removing one from the top. This teaches them about leverage, load-bearing, and identifying critical points within a system. You're not just playing a game; you're conducting a series of structural stress tests.
Pro-Tip: After removing a block, ask, "How has the center of gravity shifted? Where is the 'weakest' point in the tower now?" This encourages analytical thinking about the system's state after each change.
6. The Toy Car Traffic Flow Simulation
Clear a space on the floor and use masking tape to create a simple road network with a few intersections. Now, use toy cars to simulate traffic. Start with a smooth flow of cars all going in one direction. It’s a simple, functioning system.
Now, introduce disruptions. What happens if one car "breaks down" in the middle of a lane? A traffic jam (a bottleneck) forms. What happens if you add a new road? Does it relieve the congestion or just move it somewhere else? You can even create "traffic lights" by using red and green blocks of paper, controlling the flow and observing the effects. This is a brilliant introduction to dynamic systems and urban planning.
Pro-Tip: Give your child the role of "City Planner." Task them with solving the traffic jam by adding one new road or one new traffic light. This empowers them to think about solutions at a system level, not just an individual car level.
7. The Terrarium in a Jar
Creating a closed-system terrarium is one of the most compelling system-thinking experiments you can do. It’s a miniature, self-sustaining world. You'll need a large glass jar, some pebbles, charcoal, soil, and small plants like mosses or ferns. Once assembled and watered, you seal the jar.
This becomes a living lesson in feedback loops. The water evaporates from the soil and leaves, condenses on the glass, and "rains" back down, watering the plants. The plants produce oxygen, and decaying matter creates nutrients. The system sustains itself. Observe it over weeks and months. This is a profound way to show how a balanced system can regulate itself without external interference. It’s a core concept that Goh Ling Yong often emphasizes—understanding the elegant, self-correcting nature of well-designed systems.
Pro-Tip: Create two terrariums. Keep one sealed (the control) and open the other one for a few hours each day. Observe and chart the differences over time to see how external interference affects the closed system.
8. The Cardboard "If-Then" Automaton
This blends creativity with the fundamentals of computational thinking, which is a form of system thinking. Help your child design and build a simple moving creature or robot out of cardboard, paper fasteners, and string. It could be a dragon with flapping wings or a person with a waving arm.
The key is to create simple "if-then" mechanisms. For example, "IF I pull this string, THEN the wings flap." or "IF I turn this crank, THEN the arm waves." This teaches a direct, one-to-one relationship between an input (pulling the string) and an output (the movement). As you add more mechanisms, the child has to think about how they might interfere with or complement each other, managing a system of simple rules.
Pro-Tip: Challenge your child to create a single input that causes two different outputs. For example, one string that makes an eye blink and an arm wave. This requires them to design a more complex interconnected system.
9. The Family Chore and Reward System
Don't forget that systems are all around us, not just in toys. Turn your family's chore chart into a living experiment. The chart is a system designed to achieve an outcome: a clean house and responsible kids. The inputs are effort and time. The processes are the chores themselves. The outputs are the results (a clean room) and rewards (allowance, screen time).
Observe it together. What happens if one person doesn't do their chore (a system failure)? It creates more work for others, showing interdependence. Is the reward system (a feedback loop) working? If not, why? Does it need to be adjusted? By discussing the family chore chart as a system you are all a part of, you teach your kids to see their role within a larger whole and understand how their actions impact everyone.
Pro-Tip: Hold a weekly "system review" meeting. Ask questions like, "What's working well in our system?" and "What's one thing we can change to make our system work better for everyone next week?"
10. The Balancing Mobile Art Project
Building a mobile is a delicate and beautiful lesson in equilibrium and weighted distribution. All you need are a few sticks (or coat hangers), some string, and various small objects or toys to hang. The goal is to create a structure where every component is in perfect balance.
As your child adds a new object to one side, they will immediately see that the system goes out of balance. They have to add or adjust another object on the other side to restore equilibrium. This is a physical, intuitive way to understand that in a balanced system, any change must be met with a corresponding counter-change. It’s a constant dance of adjustments, a perfect metaphor for how teams, ecosystems, and economies work.
Pro-Tip: Start with a simple, two-object mobile. Once that's balanced, treat that entire mobile as a single object and hang it from one side of a larger stick, then find a new object to balance it. This demonstrates how smaller systems can become components within larger systems.
11. The Storytelling Engine
Systems aren't just mechanical or biological; they can also be narrative. Use story cubes, picture cards, or even random objects from around the house. The goal is to build a story together, but with one rule: each new element must logically connect to the previous one, creating a coherent narrative system.
The first card might show a tree. The next shows a key. The child has to create a link: "A boy found a key hiding in the knothole of a tree." The next card is a boat. "He used the key to unlock a boathouse..." Each choice influences all future choices. Then, try changing an early element. What if the second card wasn't a key, but a monster? The entire system of the story shifts dramatically. This teaches kids how initial conditions can have a massive impact on the final outcome of a system.
Pro-Tip: Record your story. Then, go back to the beginning and swap out the second or third element and create a brand-new story from that point. Compare the two endings to see how one small change created a completely different world.
12. The Snap Circuits "Human Body"
For slightly older kids, electronic kits like Snap Circuits are an incredible tool for system thinking. A great project is to build a simplified model of the human body. The battery can be the "stomach" (energy source), a switch can be the "brain" (control center), wires are the "nerves," a light can be the "eyes," and a motor can be the "heart."
By connecting these components, they see that the "eyes" (light) won't turn on unless the "brain" (switch) sends a signal and the "stomach" (battery) provides power. They can see what happens when a "nerve" (wire) is disconnected. It’s a powerful, hands-on demonstration of how different subsystems (nervous, circulatory, etc.) must work together to create a functioning whole.
Pro-Tip: Challenge them to add a new function to the "body," like a speaker for a "mouth." They'll have to figure out how to integrate it into the existing circuit without disrupting the other functions.
13. The Water Transfer Challenge
This experiment is all about process optimization. Set up a series of containers of different shapes and sizes. Provide your child with tools like cups, spoons, funnels, and even sponges. The challenge: move the water from a large starting bucket to a specific ending container as efficiently as possible, with the least amount of spilling.
This is a logistics system in miniature. Your child will quickly realize that using a tiny spoon is not efficient. They will see that a funnel reduces waste (system leakage). They are not just moving water; they are designing a process, analyzing its effectiveness, and refining it based on feedback (spilled water, time taken). This builds a powerful "engineer's mindset" focused on improving system performance.
Pro-Tip: Time their first attempt. Then, give them five minutes to think about how they could change their system (the tools they use, the order of operations) to do it faster and cleaner. Then time them again and celebrate the improvement.
Play is the Blueprint for the Future
Raising a system thinker isn't about adding another subject to their busy schedule. It's about changing the way we see the world with them. It’s about shifting the question from "What is this?" to "How does this work with everything else?" These simple toy experiments are the starting blocks for a mind that can see patterns, understand consequences, and design creative solutions to complex problems.
By building, testing, breaking, and rebuilding these small-scale systems, our children are creating a mental blueprint for understanding the much larger systems they will one day inherit and lead. So grab the LEGOs, break out the Play-Doh, and start asking "What if...?"
What are some of your favorite ways to encourage system thinking with your kids? Share your ideas and experiments in the comments below—we’d love to learn from you
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
Stay updated with the latest posts and insights by following on your favorite platform!