Though Hama beads have been around for a good while now they are still very popular with both boys and girls. The boxes of the beads without peg boards are reasonably cheap, you can also buy themed boxes of templates and selected colours, which usually work out a little more expensive. This is a great toy for keeping children quiet, basically you can make colour patterns and different shapes by placing the beads onto the peg board, they then need to be ironed using a little bit of paper so that the plastic melts slightly bonding the beads together. The beads can then be tipped off the board to give a coloured plasic coaster of something - I now have around 20 coasters (but lots of piece and quiet).