Every Child Should Have a Set of Wooden Blocks

Sometimes an oldie really is a goodie. Recently my daughter turned 2. On her birthday we took a little trip to Toys R Us to spend some of her birthday money. I found, on sale, a box of 200 brightly colored wooden blocks in a variety of shapes for $15. Since a smaller set was more money, and the larger set came with a canvas bag to hold them, I decided to get them. Even though she got a lot of toys that make a lot of noise, those blocks were definitely a favorite. Hannah loves to build towers and buildings with blocks. However, even though I am finding blocks all over my house, let me tell you why I love them too.

Blocks are a lot more than just a construction toy. They encourage dexterity and help develop fine motor skills in little ones. Skills that become necessary when they learn how to write. They also help develop hand to eye coordination as well as spatial visualization. My daughter has already learned that you can't put that many big blocks on top of one little one.

Blocks are also a very cheap and easy way to assess your child's development: By 36 weeks old, most babies can pick up a block. By 1 year, they can make a tower of two blocks. By 2 years old, most children can tower 3-4 blocks and 9-10 blocks by three years old. At around 3-1/2 they can start to make more complex structures like arches. (These are very rough estimates and apply to most children. Not reaching this goal does not necessarily mean your child has a problem. Any issues/concerns should obviously be discussed with your child's doctor)

Some other benefits of blocks include being able to teach your child patterning. For example lay the blocks out in a particular pattern and ask them what comes next. You can also use them to teach colors (if the blocks are colored), geometric shapes, sorting and organizing. In addition, you can use them to teach fractions and the relationship of shapes to each other. For example in our set, two square block are the same size as one rectangle.

Some things to look for when buying a set of blocks:

1) What are they made of: I have been talking about wooden blocks here, but obviously you can use plastic ones as well. I tend to prefer the feel of wooden blocks as we have enough other plastic toys in our house, but I suppose it is a matter of personal preference.

2) Color: Blocks come in natural wood or colored. I bought a set with a wide variety of colors in it as I felt that gave us a wider variety of activities to use with them. For example teaching colors with natural wood blocks isn't really feasible. At the same time, you can get sets that are not only colored but have other designs on them as well, such as stripes and polka dots. I would recommend against that, as blocks are relatively small and the pattern makes them very "busy". It then becomes more difficult to use them to teach patterning, sorting, etc.

3) How many: I would say to splurge on a larger set and get as many as you reasonably can. For example, even if my set was not on sale the difference in price between it and the smaller set was only a couple of dollars, but the smaller set only had 65 pieces, vs. mine which has 200 pieces. Therefore, I would have bought the bigger set anyway. As my daughter gets older and starts to build more complex structures the extra pieces will definitely be wanted. Yes, there are sets that cost an arm and a leg, but there is no reason to spend that. Mine is a good quality wooden set and I really haven't noticed a huge difference in the quality with a more expensive set.

Finally, just to help you get your creative juices flowing, here are a couple of activities that you can also use blocks for:

Following Directions: This is a game to teach your child how to follow directions. The possibilities are basically endless. You can either just give the directions, or as the child gets older make it into a "Simon says" type game. I used this game a lot when my son was young to help him when we were out - on a long car trip, waiting for an appointment, or in a restaurant, you get the idea.

You can play the game in a few ways. You can give the child one block and say "hold the block by your side, hold your block to the left, to the right, over your head, under your chair, etc... Or, you can give the child a couple of blocks and give directions like: pick up the triangle, pick up the red block, hold the blue square on your left. As I said, the possibilities are endless.

Matching game: This is another great game although it does require a bit more work on your part. Trace some block shapes onto a piece of poster board and have you child try and match the actual block into its outline. This game can also get more complex as your child gets older. Instead of having random shapes around the poster board, you can combine shapes into bigger shapes (i.e. two right triangles making a square) or into pictures (i.e. a flower), This can be sort of like a wooden tangram set.

As I said these are just a couple of ideas. Wooden blocks really are much more than a construction toy. I am sure with a little creativity you can come up with a lot more activities that your child will like. If you would like to share some ideas, please leave them in the comments so that everyone can see them.