Blocks building is one of the recommended tools to use in nurturing our child’s full development! We need to choose the appropriate blocks for our child according to his age. Large blocks in simple geometric shapes are suitable for toddlers till age 3. While smaller blocks with a wide range of shapes and sizes work best for children above 4 years old. If this is just the first time introducing blocks building to your child, it’s advisable that you spend some time working with the materials together. Show him how you build an object that he familiar with (e.g. a car) by using the blocks. Allow him to develop the ideas on how he can work with the materials with his imagination and creativity. We need patience and love to guide him in using the materials in the journey of nurturing our child’s full potential!

Physical Development

• The child develops his fine motor control of his fingers and establishes his hand-eye coordination. For example, he uses his fingers to pick up blocks and put them on top of each other in order to make a tall tower.

Cognitive Development

• Blocks building encourages creative play. He uses his imagination to form patterns using the blocks in order to represent an image that he has seen before. He learns to think of solutions or ways to arrange the different shapes of blocks into the pattern that he wanted to build such as city, building, train, tower, castle etc.
• Younger children are introduced to simple geometric shapes such as circle, triangle etc. and colors by playing with blocks building. Hands on playing and exploring with all of his senses enable the child to learn to distinguish and identify different shapes and colors that he can find in his environment.
• Abstract principles such as balance, symmetry and gravity are introduced indirectly to a child through blocks building. This will prepare them for future learning of mathematics and science.

This is a twin tower built by a 3.5 years old boy in my school during his free choice period. We can encourage language development by asking the child to describe his block design. Younger children are encourage to speak in short phrases or sentences. While older children are encourage to speak in expanded sentences and story telling. Lead the child into a conversation and we can introduce new vocabularies or words throughout the conversation. At the same time, the child is expanding his imagination and creativity when he is trying to answer your questions:

• What are you making/building?
• What type of tower are you making?
• What can you see on top of the tower?
• What do you have in the tower?
• Why do you build a tower?

A 3 years old boy told me that he made a huge dinosaur. Do you see what he saw? He was very excited when he described his creation. Blocks building lead the child to positive emotional development. The boy is satisfied and happy with his creation. He is proud of his creation which lead to developing self-confidence. Remember to praise the child for his great creation. Adults need to motivate the child so that he will continue to explore and cultivate positive learning attitude.

Social development

• Children learn to share blocks if they are giving an opportunity to play together. Of course, adult’s supervision is required in the early stage so that proper intervention can be done in case of snatching or fighting over the blocks.
• Sometimes, children learn cooperation when they work together to build something, for example a castle.

We can put some model animals or other objects (e.g. ribbons, dolls) near the blocks to inspire more creative play. This is also another way to allow the child to build longer concentration span in their activity. Some adults do not encourage blocks building in their home or school for many reasons, e.g. throwing of blocks to the television, too much noise etc.. I believe we just need to set few ground rules at home and school in order to teach a child about order and discipline. So, shall we nurture our child with blocks building? YES!

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