In keeping with this month’s theme of writing about things we love (and giving away some of it), I want to talk about BLOCKS! If you are thinking that block play is just for preschoolers, stay with me a minute. People of all ages can benefit from some good ol’ fashioned block play and today I’m sharing with you about our bigger kid blocks, including a Citiblocs giveaway! 🙂
It is no secret how much we love blocks. I wrote about how they ‘build the mind’ during my series on open-ended play a couple of years ago. But the more I think about the benefits of block play, the more I’ve come to see that they really help to build up our children in a variety of different areas.
Building with Blocks Builds the Mind:
♦ Increases hand-eye coordination
♦ Develops an understanding of cause and effect
♦ Enhances spatial awareness
♦ Enhances logic thinking capabilities and problem solving skills
♦ Enhances creativity processing
♦ Builds awareness and use of simple shapes
♦ Develops concrete use of counting and one-to-one correspondence
♦ Sharpens math skills by the process of grouping blocks together, adding or subtracting blocks from the group, etc…
♦ Enhances language skills as they narrate what they are doing or describing the desired end-product
Building with Blocks Builds the Body:
♦ Develops and coordinates small and large muscles
♦ Helps to achieve a dimensional sense of oneself in space
♦ Builds an intuitional awareness of object/space relationships
Building with Blocks Builds Social Skills
♦ Facilitates cooperative play and work if building with a friend or sibling
♦ Provides sharing opportunities because there is a limited supply of blocks
♦ Strengthens learning to interact graciously when their ‘creation’ is knocked over
Building with Blocks Builds the Emotions
♦ Increases their ability to meet new situations with resourcefulness
♦ Provides ability to sustain interest and overcome frustration
♦ Promotes conscious self-control
♦ Increases joy and skill in discovery
♦ Enhances a feeling of joy and competence in motor control and balance
Whew. That’s a whole lot of benefits.
We’ve loved our big wooden blocks and they still get played with from time to time. But it has been exciting to see the boys rediscover their love of blocks when we received a set of Citiblocs for Christmas. It was deja-vu with a refined twist. Brows knit together in concentration. Gross and fine motor skills were tested and honed. The box they received only came with 100 of these smooth, small, identical blocks, so there was some serious negotiating taking place. They had an opportunity to learn how to work together and the give and take of sharing a limited resource. And oh the creativity…
Unlike Lego’s (which they love too), there were some pictures of completed projects, but no step-by-step directions. Rich and the boys sat down for an entire afternoon engrossed in the work of fashioning boats, towers and anything else that struck their fancy. Since then, these blocks have come out frequently and the boys are saving up money to buy 200 more of these babies, because there are some creations that they would like to try and make that for which we simply don’t have enough blocks. For instance, they really want to try and make this snake. We also love BionicBlox connectors that go well with these Citiblocks. We reviewed BionicBlox here.
Recently Erin, over at Naturally Erin, wrote about an unfortunate homeschool encounter with their postal worker. It had me laughing as I could totally relate! What struck me was when her son responded that he didn’t go to school. Instead, he “played at home.” While not the perfect thing to say in the context of the situation, he hit on an important benefit of homeschooling… What so few fail to realize is that play builds some serious skills and homeschooling gives the time that they would otherwise spend getting in line, waiting for papers, etc to get down to the serious work of play!
And I love how we are continuing block play with these ‘bigger-boy’ Citiblocs! You can get Citiblocs in quantities of 100, 200 or even 300. We love our natural colored ones, but there are also cool colors, hot colors and camo colors. Be sure to check out their website and their facebook page to see the many creations you can make these small blocks!
Today, I’m thrilled to share with you that Citiblocs has offered to give a set of 100 – count HOT colors Citiblocs to one of my readers. Woot! As usual, leave a comment sharing what kinds of things your kids like to build and indicate on the rafflecopter form below that you have done so, to unlock a few other options to gain extra entries. This giveaway will end on March 27th.
I’m celebrating the move to this new blog home address and and having a ‘house-warming’ party! We’ll have a few giveaways posted each week in March as I share about things my family loves! Check out the opportunity to win
Hidden Art/For the Children’s Sake bundle (Jessica is the winner!)
Educating the Whole-Hearted Child (through 3/20)
Arizona Homeschool Convention and Curriculum Fair pass giveaway (through 3/20)
Playsilks: Unleashing the Imagination (through 3/22)
Everything is very open with a very clear explanation of the challenges.
It was truly informative. Your website is very helpful.
Many thanks for sharing!
love the new look!!!! thanks for the giveaways! 🙂
My older kids were never really into building with blocks, more nature outside building with rocks and mud, now my youngest though loves blocks, along with the mud and rocks too 🙂 These would be perfect to get everyone involved, all ages including mom 🙂
Looks fun!
Evangeline would love these. I imagine she would build a barn for her horses, and K2 would construct a castle!
My son loves to build hide outs and first for his collection of action figures. He also builds dragon houses, robots, roads, and tower.
My daughter loves building houses for her dolls.
My girls like to build houses lately – especially ones that look like the homes of the characters in books we’re reading. 🙂
my boys took one look at that snake and immediately started devising ways they could make one out of stuff we have. so cool! they are all into the block, play dough, and hands on. Bonobo is really into the LEGO Bionicles right now… we picked up a bunch of sets for 1$ each a few months ago. the instructions went out the window as they created MEGA creatures. Love it when I come around a corner because they are “too quiet” and discover their minds at work in play! Miss ya, sweet friend 🙂
My LO just turned 2 and he is loving creating with blocks. I believe he would try to build a garage for his trucks 🙂
This is pathetic, we have NO blocks. :/
My kiddos would absolutely LOVE these cool blocks! Hours of fun, right there!!!
My daughter loves to set up homes and towns – blocks are great!
My boys are into building structures right now. They were on an airplane kick a couple of months ago 🙂
My oldest loves to build – mostly rockets at the moment!!
My son loves anything that flies so I am certain there would be helicopters, airplanes, towers to the sky. 🙂
These are so fun! And we always love blocks around here… there never seems to be enough. Their latest building creation was a hospital for animals. 🙂
~Jessica
These are awesome! I think I might have to put them on a wishlist!
My boys love blocks! They would make all kinds of things with them.
My son loves to make dinosaurs out of blocks. I wouldn’t normally think of that as something to make from blocks, but he does a great job!
My kiddos enjoy their building blocks! I have a son and a daughter and the blocks they have they use to make houses, barns, pens, driveways, etc..
My boys love building everything they can think of. Buildings, robots, guns and vehicles. Their minds wonder and their hands build. We most certainly are block lovers in this house.
Thanks for the mention, Heather! …and yeah, my kids just play at home 🙂 Isn’t homeschool great! (Good thing thing they don’t know they’re really learning…) My kids love blocks…and citiblocs are the best! My kids built a giant beehive looking art object with citiblocs at church last time 🙂
hahaha… I love that they don’t realize that so much of their play is learning – both intentional and spontaneous!