Block Play into Learning

       I'm an architect's daughter, and one of the very first toys we had lying around our house were blocks. Different brands and types littered our home's floors through the years--from Lincoln Logs to Lego's to cardboard boxes. Even now I still firmly believe that giving children blocks to play and create and manipulate serves as one of the best toys. 

       The benefits of block play have been researched in depth on the great many skills they build in children. Here are five of those skills that as an educator I greatly appreciate:

1. Development of  visual discrimination, the recognition of detail in visuals--particularly with descriptive and comparative language, as a pre-reading skill
2. Development of small and gross motor skills, along with hand-eye cordination development
3. Basic mapping skills are often learned through blocks
4. Offers introductory math and science concepts to children such as problem solving via trial and error, pattern creating, categorizing and classifying, and identifying sets, size, shapes, and weight
5. Ability to visualize spatially--to mentally manipulate 2D, 3D, and 4D objects--often a skill that is stronger in boys than in girls simply due to their time spent with constructive based toys (blocks)

       Even more, I've always loved how blocks are one of the most open-ended toys. Regardless of the age and interest of the child, they can utilize blocks in countless ways. While I was planning curriculum with first graders in mind this past school year I wanted to find ways to incorporate blocks into some of our various learning activities. My favorite was when the student had to build a zoo using blocks and small plastic animals, followed by drawing their creation as a map, which you can check out here. What ways have you integrated blocks into your students and children's learning?

What are you able to build with your blocks? 

Castles and palaces, temples and docks. 

Rain may keep raining, and others go roam, 

But I can be happy and building at home.

~Block City, Robert Louis Stevenson~ 

*To learn more on the importance and history of block play check out The Yale-New Haven Teacher Institute

Use a Light Table to Teach About Colors and Shapes

Above is the light table in our early learning center. The table is softly lighted with special bulbs that do not harm
the children's vision. This is a lovely center idea but I think that a number of games should be developed to
compliment the device. Our students often appear disinterested in it. Sometimes teachers must become
more proactive in centers in order for small children to get the most beneficial use from educational props or aids.

      In our classroom we have a center for teaching colors and shapes that is a little unusual I think. It consists of a light table (very soft light) and a basket containing wood framed, plastic shapes. These shapes glow with luminous color when placed on the light table. Students can move the shapes around to build pictures; teachers can point to the colors and shapes to identify them verbally. I think it is fitting for a church preschool center. The shapes remind me of stained glass. Our church windows also have similar shapes and colors. Perhaps I should invent some sort of treasure hunt or find the shapes/colors game for my young students that will utilize this table more and also introduce them to seeing colors and shapes in the environment that shelters them?

More Methods To Teach About Colors and Shapes:

• Why Colors and Shapes Matter
• Teaching Colors and Shapes to Young Children Through Music
• Teaching color and shape vocabulary with games
• Learning Station Idea for Colors and Shapes
• Color Wheel for Toddlers and another aid for increased manipulative difficulty
• Teaching shapes and colors Christmas theme
• Color sorting and matching for toddlers using pom-poms
• Gumball Machine Color Matching with Craft Pom Poms
• Color Sorting and Matching Activities for Toddlers
• Tot School - Red
• toddler "busy bag" swap!
• Sorting Colors and Shapes
• Shape Monsters
• Five fun ways to teach with tape

Tangram Cats

      If more than one set of tangrams is used to make a single figure, the combinations are almost endless, but one set to each figure is the rule. Sam Lloyd, the famous puzzle man, managed to get some very fair representations of animals with them. Here are some of his ideas of what cats look like:

      Perhaps with this much of a hint, you will be able to arrange these little black forms so as to resemble a horse or a dog. To make a fox, with its sharp ears, something like a cat's should not be difficult. If you happen to get some outlines that you think are very good, Send us a link and let other youngsters have a look at them.

      Here are two more of Sam Lloyd's cats, which might be entitled "Before and after drinking:

Tangram Stencil

       One of the oldest and most fascinating puzzles comes, like so many quaint things, from the Far East where, over four thousand years ago, a learned Chinese man named, Tan, made the invention which forty centuries have been unable to improve or alter. Worthy of a civilization that invented Chess, Tan's puzzle has lived on unchanged through the ages, affording amusement and thought to men of such ability as Napoleon, who during his exile on St. Helena, used to spend hour after hour with the little black geometric figures.

        Print cut and trace around the Tangram pattern below using sharp scissors and black craft paper. Now you will be ready to assemble the Tangram figures below.

Tangrams, a recreation that appears to be at least four thousand years old, has apparently never been dormant,
 and has not been altered or "improved upon" since the original was first cut out the seven pieces shown above
 in diagram 1. If you mark the point B, midway between A. and C., on one side of a square of any size,
 and D, midway between C. and E., on an adjoining side, the direction of the cuts is too obvious to need
 further explanation.

       All these seven pieces must be fitted against each other, never overlapping, in order to make the figures of men, beasts, houses, or the like.

Where does the second man get his foot from?

The cocked hat puzzle with answer on the right.

Lady holding her skirts high puzzle and answer.

The representation of a depressed cat puzzle and it's answer.

The gentleman tired of life puzzle and it's answer.

Tan presenting a puzzle to his wife, answer just right.

Chinese tea set made from Tangrams