Block Center
Young kids of all ages can learn a lot from playing with blocks. Child care providers provide a space for innovative, cooperative play by designating a section of the child care facility for block play. When kids play with blocks, they exercise a number of developmental abilities, such as object manipulation, building constructions, and teamwork.
Physical development: By utilizing blocks, babies and toddlers practice their grasping and hand-eye coordination. Building complicated constructions that call for balance, a steady hand, and hand-eye coordination helps preschoolers and school-age kids hone their gross motor and fine motor skills.
Cognitive skills: Children who utilize building blocks have the opportunity to put their ideas to practice in creating actual constructions. Children must comprehend a wide range of math concepts in order to build complicated block constructions, including size, form, number, order, area, length, pattern, and weight. Among other critical thinking abilities, children can practice comparison, measurement, and classification.
The block area is an ideal place for children to practice new vocabulary by using words to describe types of buildings, shapes, and structures. When planning a structure together, children must use verbal communication skills. Child care providers can enhance language skills in the block area by using new vocabulary words, encouraging children to describe their structures and their building process, and encouraging children to write stories about the structures they create.