BUILDING BLOCKS – HOW CAN THEY HELP YOUR CHILD?

Tracing the history of building blocks, one can be really surprised to find that the use of building blocks for nursery kids to teach those basic alphabets dates back to the year 1693 when John Lohke made an inference that the use of building blocks shall aid in the development of the child. Large scale production of these building blocks started in the 1890’s with many schools using these building blocks in their list of teaching aids. The Montessori system of education lays emphasis on the aspect of visually experiencing each lesson that a kid learns at school. The building blocks are a key teaching aid which helps the teachers teach the kids the basics of language and maths and also simultaneously engage them in fun-loving activities.

There are loads of benefits that come in hand with engaging your child with the building blocks. They are intellectual benefits, physical benefits, social benefits and creative benefits too. All these are necessary for a healthy development of your child in the formative years before they join school. The building blocks help in the proper development of muscles in your tender kid’s hands. They aid in the development of hand-eye co-ordination and also in distinguishing between different shapes and registering them visually in their minds. Many games built using building blocks encourage children to make friends and perform as a team. This is like teaching your kid team work and the benefits of working together at an early stage. This also indirectly aids in improving the communication skills of the kid as they start speaking with kids of their age group and interact.

The mathematics skills of kids also are improved greatly as the kids learn maths using these building blocks. They are also termed unit blocks where numbers are formed using these blocks. Many kinder garden schools encourage kids to make their own shapes using the basic building blocks. This makes them think creatively and you may end up getting a new shape in your classroom that is new and developed by your own kid. Also, when a guide picture is given and some basic building blocks are given, the kids are required to mix and match to get the shape shown to them. This again improves their colour and shape perception in a great way. Hence, these building blocks are a boon to kids in many ways. Go and buy your kid one right away! He will love it.