Did you ever consider how powerful of a learning tool a simple bunch of blocks can be?There are so many ways to work with your child no matter what his or her age and teach them so many things with a simple group of building blocks.
The first thing that children can gain from playing with blocks is the development and fine tuning of gross and fine motor skills. Stacking blocks takes practice and even very small children will enjoy practicing carefully putting one block on top of another until it becomes unbalanced or an unsteady handy hits the wobbly tower of blocks and it comes crashing down – an action which delights most children too!
With practice, your child will learn to cause and effect. What happened when he or she stacked up the blocks too high? Finely placing blocks one on top of another also develops manual dexterity needed for grasping and picking up the blocks as well as learning to place them on top of each other in a straight manner.
You can move on when your child is older and talk about the shapes of the blocks. Squares and make rectangles and other shapes by stacking up blocks. Play guessing games and create shapes or have races and stack all the blocks of a like color together. All of these create fast thinking and decision making skills in your child.
Older children love and appreciate pretend play. Build a simple block house. Decide if it’s really a house, a school, an office and talk about what could be going on inside.
There are so many ways to learn with a simple set of blocks, if your child doesn’t already have a set, get one this week and watch how many ways your child can blossom!
