Encourages social and emotional growth as they take turns, work as a group, share resources, make plans, build self esteem and pride in accomplishments, gradually extend attention spans.Engage spatial awareness, stability, fine and gross motor skills.Work at solving problems, keep trying and manage their frustration.Express themselves creatively and explore current themes and questions.Use their imagination – on their own or as part of a group.There is a reason they have been around for so many years! Source : Clare Louise – The Woodland Child How does Block Play encourage learning?Īlthough a basic material and the staple of many early years services and family homes blocks offer so many possibilities for play based learning.
Observations and recognising schemas and new developmental stages and skills will help you to plan ahead and reignite interest in the construction area. Older children might ask for additional props or you might notice the toddler has a handbag full to bursting with blocks and needs something bigger. There is absolutely no wrong or right way to play with blocks or even what the definition of a ‘block'might be! Every child is unique in the way that they choose to approach this material and that is why I believe blocks are such a valuable tool to encourage open-ended play and learning.īy observing how children are playing and using the blocks we can gain ideas for how we might extend and challenge that play by the addition of a few simple loose parts.īy providing opportunities and invitations to incorporate different materials to what might be just the ‘traditional' wooden or plastic blocks we allow children to decide how they want to play and extend their own learning. Older children will begin to explore and experiment with engineering and problem solving skills as they start to build roadways, bridges, complicated structures and also use the blocks to connect to other areas of their play like dramatic and imaginary play. Toddlers love to carry blocks all over the place and can be very creative with putting them in and out of different materials to make this easier! They also begin to stack and form the first simple towers as they explore cause and effect, spatial awareness and balance. Blocks are one of my favourite budget friendly resources for parents and educators because you can keep extending block play in so many different ways with just a few simple loose parts!Ĭhildren of different ages and stages use and create with blocks in different ways.
0 kommentar(er)
