Building blocks are a timeless magic toy for 6-month-olds, eh…Kids never need to stop! Little ones love to nibble on them, knock them together and, of course, knock over the amazing bricks you’ve created. At the same time, the toddlers enjoyed their new job as chief blockmakers, slowly growing into tower builders, castle builders, and all-around builders. While it all looks fun and playful, both small and big kids can get more out of the block games. This is the huge role of building blocks in teaching.
Benefits of Block Games
Strengthen the Development of Motors
Fine motor skills are small movements of little fingers and hands that eventually enable your child to tie their shoes, button their shirts, and write you a Valentine’s Day card. Every time your toddler or preschooler holds, manipulates, or places more and more blocks, they are honing their evolving gripping skills, body awareness, and coordination.
Teaching Cause and Effect
Bumping two blocks together can show your child that if I do this, this noise will happen. Knock down your brick tower masterpiece will show your kids that if I push it, the tower will collapse. You might be thinking, so what? Knowing that your little one has just learned that they are capable of making things happen! This is exciting stuff that will ultimately help your child develop early communication and cognitive skills that will lay the foundation for your future scientific research!
Improve Early Math Knowledge
While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting your child explore the blocks while playing freely, it’s also very rewarding when an adult provides a little guidance. For example, researchers at Purdue University found that when adults gave play cues to children between the ages of 3 and 5, such as asking them to build a tower and then copying an image of a cat into a building block structure, children made progress in all three math areas. Compared to the children in the control group, their skills – counting, shape recognition, and mathematical language. Help improve your skills by counting the blocks and using them as math prompts. (I want four blocks, but I only have two.) How many more do I need?)
Develop STEM Intelligence
It turns out that building block games do more than just enhance the “M” in STEM. They actually help to improve the whole acronym … Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math!One reason: Building with blocks requires what’s called spatial reasoning, which is in part the ability to visualize what an object will look like when it’s rotated. This type of mental gymnastics is increasingly associated with achievement in STEM fields, as well as in geography.
Develop Social Skills
From around the age of 4, children begin to crave building with other children… But there’s no epic building without social skills! Brick games serve as a bridge to help kids learn the art of communication, cooperation, responsibility and leadership. After all, budding builders need to work together to determine what to build, how to build, and who is responsible for what work. It’s very exciting to watch kids build friendships as they build blocks.
Nurture Creativity
Unlike single-purpose toys (e.g., electronic toys), a building block is more than just a building block. It’s a car. It’s a cow. It’s a phone. It’s a boat, a parking lot, a castle, a farm, a zoo, a superhero base…Components of anything your child can dream of! In short, bricks inspire kids to create, build, and push their imagination to the limit. As a bonus, remember: creativity is also necessary to solve any type of problem!
Block Party! Your Baby’s Block Schedule
Infants: Carry and Explore
Now, kids are very interested in learning about the purpose of building blocks, which means a lot of touching, carrying, tapping, opening mouths, and knocking down blocks. However, at 12 months of age, many children can build towers up to four blocks high…And then they will immediately knock the tower down!
2 and 3 Years Old: Super Stacked
Let the building begin! Children at this age love to stack and line up the bricks. In fact, many kids can build a six-block-tall tower by the age of 2! You’ll notice a lot or repetition in their creations, which means they’re starting to learn everything they need to know about patterns. Fun!
3- And 4-Year-Olds: Experimentation and Imagination
Bridges and passages appeared here for action figures as well as small trains and cars. When your child learns to balance, expect a lot of trial and error now. At the same time, marvel at their benefits in fine motor development and hand-eye coordination.
4-Year-Olds: Buildings and Symmetry
Around the age of 4, children love to create fences and use them as props for imaginative play. This means that your entire living room may be occupied by huge block pieces that loosely represent forts, farms, parking lots – the possibilities are truly endless! This is where your child’s spatial awareness skills really come into play. At the same time, you’ll notice that sorting and matching blocks become more important to your child, as is creating symmetry in their builds.
4- and 5-Year-Olds: House
The build is starting to look more realistic and detailed…And they require more planning on the part of your child. They need time to solve the problem! Now, the dramatic gameplay goes hand in hand with block building, so you’ll overhear a lot of action-packed adventures taking place in Block Town. Another amazing development: cooperative construction begins now.
Ages 5 and Up: Complexity
When children reach school age, their flexibility and building skills really come into play, as they can build more complex, multi-layered, detailed structures. Kids love trying to replicate the buildings they see in real life. They recruit building buddies for co-op play and incorporate other toys and items into their buildings. (Does your child’s building block structure have a toilet paper roll in the middle?) Finally, the imagination becomes strong, and the building blocks represent things like airplanes and cars.