There are several reasons that we love incorporating building with blocks into therapy, classroom, and home routines. Block play is such an important foundation of early childhood learning, and can target so many developmental goals. Plus, who doesn’t love to knock over the tower when you are done building….classic fun times!
Here are some of the many benefits of block play:
Strengthens motor skills and hand/eye coordination
Strengthens fine motor manipulation skills
Strengthens pincer grasp
Builds graded precision of movements
Builds spatial reasoning
Helps children learn to balance objects in space
Helps with motor planning skills
Encourages imaginative play
Foundation for early mathematical concepts (size, shape, counting)
Provides a means for appropriate destructive play (great outlet for those sensory seekers)
Encourages teamwork
Builds problem solving skills
Strengthens visual perceptual skills
Introduces the concept of gravity
Encourages speech production
Can be used to help with following directions
Honestly, we could go on and on about blocks….they are the coolest! While we think open-ended free play with blocks is AMAZING, we also love to incorporate structured block play into our therapy sessions. One of our favorite activities is to build a tower, and have the child build a matching tower. We often start small with only 2 blocks at a time, and work up to more complicated towers. We also love giving the child a turn to build a tower that we have to copy to make it even more fun. This is a great game to incorporate into home learning routines! Our amazing Occupational Therapy Team put together a fun free printable based on matching block towers. The great thing about this is it is also a coloring page, so if you don’t have blocks available at home right now kids can also work on matching the correct colors. Click here for the FREE block worksheet, and happy building!!
