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Fun With Blocks
1. Patterning – Gather together a group of blocks of different sizes and shapes. Create a two-block pattern, such as blue, red, blue, and red. Have the child guess what comes next and then they can continue the pattern that you started. Make the patterns more difficult as they catch on using shapes (triangle, triangle, square) or size (small, large, small). You can also let them create their own.
2. Touch and Feel – Place several different shaped blocks into a paper bag. Call out a shape and have the child reach in try and find that particular shape using only his sense of touch. Reverse the game and have him describe what he is feeling and you guess the shape. This will help build their vocabulary and helps them to use visual discrimination.
3. Measurement – Pick out a group of blocks that are basically the same size. Let the children see how tall they are using blocks. For example a child may be 15 blocks tall. They can measure other items around the room. This is also a fun way to practice counting.
4. Sorting – Gather together a variety of blocks of different shapes, sizes and colors. Let the child sort them into groups. Let them explain to you why they chose to sort them the way they did. Many will choose to sort by color first and then as they grow they will do it by size and shape as well. Sometimes they will surprise you with how they choose to sort – new and old, ugly and pretty. Children can be very creative in their combinations if given the opportunity.
5. Miniature Environment – Add some props to an old set of blocks to give them new life. Adding some cheap little dinosaurs to your blocks will allow your children’s imagination to create caves, mountains, or maybe even a dinosaur island. Other ideas may include adding some animals to create a farm or a zoo, or some little people to create a home, castle or fort. The possibilities are endless!
6. Domino trails - For this you need at least 20 rectangular blocks. Let the child set them up so that when the first one is knock over it will create a falling domino effect. As they get more experienced, they can set them up in more complicated ways using other props to get the same domino effect.
7. Block Puzzles – These are perfect for the younger preschool child. Choose several different shapes and colors of blocks and trace them onto a sheet of paper. Color in the shapes according to the blocks that were traced. Let the child match the blocks to the shapes that were traced. This is a good activity to teach shape and color recognition.
8. Sequencing –Take a set of blocks and put them in size order from the largest to the smallest or vice versa. Start with two or three blocks and add more as they gain confidence and skill.
9. Holiday Blocks – During the holidays or even around a birthday, wrap blocks or boxes in wrapping paper and allow the children to build with these creative new blocks.
10. Ramps - Give the children a board or piece of cardboard and let the use blocks to build ramps. Give them cars and balls to experiment with. If the car rolls off the side see if they can adjust the height to keep that from happening. This is a great experiment to teach cause and effect.
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