One of the extraordinary benefits of playing with blocks is that so very little is required to hold your child’s attention for so long. Far different than many of today’s passive activities, playing with blocks is an active event that cultivates your child’s patience and independent decision making.
Block play puts your child fully in charge of the nature and scope of outcomes. It offers unlimited, open-ended possibilities. At the earliest level, with cube blocks, your child is invited into the world of research: how many blocks can I stack before they fall down? How can I improve the structure? It offers your child full authority over the creative process. It enriches her comprehension of quantity. It encourages trial and error. It nurtures her understanding of grouping, structure, abstract and representational design.
The progression from cube blocks to shape blocks (as infant becomes toddler) has the good fortune of corresponding to your child’s growing worldly experiences and interests (e.g.—fire trucks, castles). The expression of those interests through blocks adds further dimension to block playing activity and invites a stronger commitment to self-motivated learning. How? ---Because your child has decided on her own that something particular is worthy of being represented with blocks (or Legos, or coloring, or play acting). She wants to learn how to do this. She wants to get it right. She’ll want to do it many times over because she’s pursuing the variations. That’s self-motivated learning.
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