She started playing blocks with her Mega Bloks. It’s easier to build because the pieces snap together. I noticed she’s grown tired of building the same stuff so it’s time to upgrade
We bought her 2 sets – one from Imagination and a set from Wonderworld Toys. She started showing interest in wooden blocks but had a little difficulty at first because the towers are not snapped together. But now, I always see her spending hours stacking them together and creating different things with them.
I first bought this set of Geo Shapes Lacing toy from Wonderworld Toys. She can already recognize shapes and colors and this one will be an additional activity for her because it includes a string for lacing and cards for problem solving. She’s not yet interested in stringing them together so what we do is I place the cards on the table and let her match the shapes. She got it the first time!
and here are other things she did with them
she sorts them
she creates castles/rockets with them (same structure but sometimes she call it rocket and sometimes they are castles)
also great for sorting and counting exercises
and yes..they also make great animal stands! how creative!
Another set we bought for her are wooden building blocks from Imagination. I got this 75-piece tub from Toys R Us. What I love about this is it’s not so heavy and the size is just right for her small hands.
As a mom of a toddler, it’s so great to see my kid enjoys her toys. It’s a great way to keep her busy for a few hours. She can sit down for two hours just building things, making the house quiet. And I honestly will choose this over gadgets. There’s nothing wrong with letting them play with electronics (after all that’s where she learned ABC) but wooden blocks, or building blocks in general aid in the development of different skills of young children through the open-ended play of constructing.
Here are a few other benefits of playing with wooden blocks:
- Enhances hand-eye coordination
- Improves muscle strength for the hands and fingers
- Improves fine motor skills
- Enhances logical thinking capability
- Improves attention span
- Enhances imagination
- A recent study of 1- to 2-year-olds found that those who played with blocks with their parents just 20 minutes a day scored 15 percent higher on language development tests and were 80 percent less likely to watch television (read here)
- Intellectual Benefits – Blocks can potentially help develop children’s vocabularies as they learn to describe sizes and shapes. They may enhance their math skills through the process of adding, subtracting or grouping blocks together. (read here)
Look at that face! At 32 months, she can already build a tower double this size when she’s on the floor. But she prefers to build multiple towers rather than a high one. And do you notice she always puts the triangle on top?
