Building Blocks
According to research, the first three (3) years of life is the most critical to the intellectual and emotional development of a child. During these first three years, 75% of brain growth is completed. However, the result of this development is not observable, in most cases, until your child reaches the third or fourth grade. This means, that what you do in the early stage of your child’s life will greatly affect when he or she enters school.
Kids from 0 to 36 months learn primarily from exploring, playing and hands-on activities. At this stage, infants and toddlers are not quite ready for more complex form of learning. Parents can spend a lot of money on fancy electronic toys and battery-powered gadgets but nothing’s more effective in developing your child’s brain other than one of the simplest, oldest and lowest cost toys available, the building blocks.
According child psychologists, playing blocks can engage the child in creative play. It can do as much and possibly more than any other toy in encouraging the child’s growth and development. Creative play helps a child develop intellectually, emotionally, socially, and physically – all skills that will benefit a child later in life.
For babies, colorful blocks can stimulate the child’s sensory skills. The bright colors encourage infants to grasp the blocks and multiple colors help the child to learn to distinguish between two objects. As they get older, they will also be developing their motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Later on, they will begin attempting to stack and balance blocks, which will further encourage both their fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Carrying the blocks can also develop the child’s small muscles, improving their physical development. Overall the children will be learning about sizes, shapes, colors, numbers, patterns, length, and weight, all supporting their cognitive development and the same time they are developing their physical skills.
The social and emotional skills of a child can also be developed by encouraging them to share their toys. They will learn how to negotiate and exchange ideas with their peers. They will be expanding their knowledge and learning to respect viewpoints other than their own. And when adults show genuine interest, children are often eager to tell others about their creation. With this, they will develop their language skills as help them find accurate words to describe their imagination, and might even develop writing skills by creating signs for their “buildings.”
Those benefits mentioned above, are just few benefits you child can get from a simple building block toys. A simple and inexpensive building block set can offer an infinite number of uses in your child’s playtime.
