Christmas is just around the corner and many are already thinking about what to give to their children, nephews, grandchildren and friends. If they have not already done so, they will soon be ready with the best gifts for 2017 and they will be full of the latest junk and electronic devices.
The purpose of these lists is to try to persuade the parents of young children to provide them with the best at the beginning of their lives and to have the best advantages when they go to school, acquiring the latest technology.
Something that does not appear in these Christmas lists and that should be in the top positions in terms of learning material are the blocks: a toy for children that has been around for a long time and there are few toys that are so beneficial to develop all the abilities of a child. Any child teacher knows that these toys help develop many skills, including motor, social, language and cognitive skills.
Blocks help develop spatial reasoning capabilities
Playing with the blocks, children experience stacking them, putting them in balance or building things. While they play they learn to share and respect the constructions of other children, as well as to ask for the blocks they need and to describe what they are creating. Perhaps the most important thing is that children develop problem solving ability, as well as their creativity and imagination when they create their masterpieces. Finally, we cannot forget the perseverance it entails when children try again and again to build the tallest tower or the most complex castle.
In Babies and more, what to give for Christmas? The most recommended toys for each ageFew people know that the blocks too encourage spatial reasoning, the ability to manipulate objects mentally or to think in ways that relate space to the position, area and size of things. We use space reasoning every day when we read a map, park the car on vacation, assemble a piece of furniture or cut a cake into equal pieces.
Spatial reasoning skills are linked to mathematical ability and children with good spatial skills are usually better at math. Many people are unaware of this data, but a good mathematical ability in the early years is a better indicator of good results later in school than learning to read early or have good socio-emotional abilities. Playing with blocks helps children to understand many mathematical concepts about numbers, measurements and geometry and when they play with the blocks they count, measure, calculate, mark, transform and learn about symmetry.
What may surprise readers the most is research that shows that spatial reasoning skills are the best indicator of whether children will end up studying a career related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM ). Space skills are very important in professions related to these branches of knowledge because they need qualities such as, for example, creating and analyzing x-ray or ultrasound images, engineering and architectural designs or cross sections of heating and plumbing systems.
In Babies and moreThe 23 star toys most requested by children to give away this Christmas 2018-2019The blocks also help develop spatial language
Play with blocks also encourages space language because when children play with blocks they listen and produce words related to spatial reasoning that include concepts such as below, above, next to, behind, etc.
One study showed that playing with blocks meant that more spatial language was used than any other type of game, including playing with dolls, playing houses, going to stores, going to school, going to the zoo, to the kitchens or plan a dance.
Other research analyzed the spatial language and it was concluded that the more space words the children heard, the more space words they said and obtained better results in space tasks. In this study, the researchers observed the language related to the characteristics and spatial properties of objects such as their dimensions (how big, wide and tall they are), their shapes (rectangle, circle, square ...) and other spatial properties (if they are folded, pointed, curved, etc.).
Different blocks for different ages and stages
The best way to make your children play with blocks is Play with them.
There are many types of blocks for children, including MegaBloks for very young children, Duplo, wooden blocks or waffle-shaped blocks for preschoolers and Eco bricks or Lego blocks for older children. .
But it is only about guidelines and suggestions. For example, my daughters aged ten and fourteen still play with wooden blocks. The main reason why blocks are so durable toys is that they are "loose parts" that can be moved, sorted, combined, separated and put together in many different ways. Frobel, the German who founded the first nurseries, made a list of ten gifts for children, six of which were blocks.
The best way to make children play with blocks is to play with them and teach them that you are also interested and excited about the blocks. A friend of mine has as a rule play half an hour every afternoon with Duplo blocks with your young children of five, three and a year and says it's your favorite time of day.
So next time you get a list of the best toys to give away, remember that the best toy of all is probably missing.
Authors: Kym Simoncini, Adjunct Professor of Infant and Primary Education, University of Canberra, and Kevin Larkin, Professor of Mathematics Education, Griffith University.
This article has originally been published in The Conversation. You can read the original article here.
Translated by Silvestre Urbón.
