Veronika is old enough that today I thought I’d test if she was ready to build blocks up, not focus on knocking them down.
Whether you have a classic wooden set of blocks or foam ones, or something in between, blocks are a toy that never goes out of style, and they are so fantastic for children’s development. Today we mixed her foam set (consisting of multiple shapes) and added in a few wooden square blocks.
I handed her a block and mimicked placing it on top of another to start a tower. To my delight, she was game to build!
Her towers never made it more than three high before the temptation to knock over was too great, but any building at all was a definite first.
Since she’s older, we also worked on some learning concepts with the blocks. First I sorted them by color…
…and then by shape.
You can add in new vocab, too, perhaps “straight” or “pointy”.
She really loved inserting circular blocks into the holes of square ones, which I loved watching.
As a final element to today’s play, I introduced the notion of imagination. What if our blocks weren’t blocks but… cars? I made one go “vroom vroom” along her play mat and she immediately took me up on the idea, running a block back and forth.
How about a choo choo train? She loved this version, too.
I can’t wait to see what she builds or imagines in the future, whether her blocks become mountains or castles, animals in a pen or something else entirely.
