A block is a block is a block - not!
When it comes to educational toys, blocks are among the most basic examples you can find. It may seem they don't really do anything and indeed, in their simplest form they're just little wooden or plastic cubes. But to a child, they represent a whole world of discovery, possibilities and exploration!
Blocks are great toys for children of all ages. Infants love soft blocks to look at, squeeze, moistily chew on, and drop - in the rarely disappointed faith that a parent or other admirer will immediately return the object. Toddlers like to put blocks in boxes and pour them out or pile them on the floor. Preschoolers can build towers, houses, animals and more with blocks. Blocks are a great way to keep your child occupied, but they also have lots of educational benefits. Here are some ways that children learn from playing with blocks.
Playing together with blocks: social development
Blocks are fun for one child, but two or more kids make them much more interesting. Young children enjoy playing with blocks in groups. It is a great way to encourage children to learn to share and cooperate with others - although you should watch out for the highly excitable brats bashing each others tiny little heads in! Of course you'll also be aware that very young children can throw objects like blocks very far, quite fast and - although usually by accident - devastatingly aimed. As your child grows, she and her playmates may learn to work together to build things.
Hand-eye coordination and physical development
Small children can gain hand strength from blocks. They are also one of the best toys for developing hand-eye coordination. Babies like to drop or throw them. Toddlers will attempt to arrange and stack them and eventually learn to balance them. Loud screaming inevitably follows when such a structure suddenly fails, although the child pretty soon discovers that they can also make it fail on purpose. This may develop into a true building-destroying frenzy. Who said that it's easy, being a parent?
ABC blocks for intellectual development
Alphabet blocks or ABC blocks are one of the best educational toys money can buy. Most of them are brightly colored and feature letters of the alphabet and numbers. Young children can begin to sort them by color and eventually they will learn the names of the colors. Then they can begin to learn the letters and numbers. Once your child has mastered his letters, the blocks are great for quizzing him on which letter makes which sound.Blocks are also excellent for introducing math. They can put the numbers in order to practice counting, and they can count the blocks themselves to learn how to count objects. Eventually they can use them to experiment with addition and subtraction. If my parents would only have known this, sixty or more years ago, I might have been really rich now instead of only moderately wealthy. But hey: what am I complaining about? I have food on the table every day!
Lego helps creative development
Building is an excellent creative process for children. It's a great feeling when they learn to balance several blocks on top of each other. From there they will begin to build simple but gradually expanding structures. Eventually the budding architects will move on to elaborate houses, schools and even castles - not to mention complete cities. Is this where the term "city blocks" comes from (wide grin)?!
Lego blocks provide more flexibility in building. They also allow kids to move their creations to other locations, on account of the little bricks and other elements being kind of locked into each other. While regular building blocks are better for smaller children, Lego blocks are a good replacement when they seem to have outgrown them. The Lego stuff itself happens to be an addiction one never outgrows. During the years, the factory has added so many technical (almost high-tech!) additions, that many parents and even grandparents enjoy Lego on their very own. It's astonishing what one can do, if enough building elements of sufficient variety are available!
Kids can learn a number of things from blocks. Because they are learning through participation, they will retain the knowledge more readily. What more could you ask for, out of an educational toy?