Blocks Blocks Blocks

 Building with Blocks
 There's so much going on in the block corner that it's easy to understand why it is often the most popular area in the preschool classroom. Often boys dominate the area, making it difficult for girls  to enter. One study suggests that if a teacher positions herself in the block corner for part of the day, girls are more likely to enter and use the area.
    Building with blocks is lots of fun--and it teaches many skills that children will use later. One study indicates that many of the concepts learned from block building are the foundation for more advanced science comprehension. For example, a child learns about gravity, stability, weight, balance, and systems from building with blocks. Through trial and error, she learns inductive thinking, discovery, the properties of matter, and the interaction of forces. One researcher suggested that one reason you see fewer girls in advanced placement physics classes in high school is because they are excluded (unintentionally) from many of the "play" activities that build scientific framework.  In our class we are sure to provide these experiences and include both the boys and girls in a meaningful and complete way.
   What's Learned? Blocks help children learn scientific, mathematical, art, social studies, and language concepts; use small-motor skills; and foster competence and self-esteem. Building with blocks also teaches life skills. Just putting away your groceries in the cupboard is using the same concepts of spatial relations, stability, and balance that you learned in the block corner.
   Besides the scientific concepts discussed in the previous paragraph, blocks also are important in developing math skills. A child learns about depth, width, height, length, measurement, volume, area, classification, shape, symmetry, mapping, equality (same as), and inequality (more than, less than)--all from building with blocks.
    Building with blocks also teaches art concepts such as patterns, symmetry, and balance. A child learns about symbolic representation, interdependence of people, mapping, grids, patterns, people and their work. A child gains pre-reading skills such as shape recognition, differentiation of shapes, size relations. Language is enhanced as children talk about how to build, what they built, what is its function or ask questions about concepts or directions. And dramatic play is also a part of block building as children create stories to go along with their constructions.
    Finally, building with blocks fosters a feeling of competence, teaches cooperation and respect for the work of others, encourages autonomy and initiative.
    It's not just building with blocks that is educational--so is cleanup. Sorting and storing blocks teaches classification and one-to-one correspondence, which are important math skills.