Toy blocks, also known as building blocks, are solid shapes kids use for construction play. Some of those are of wood, while others are interlocking plastic bricks made by the top building block companies. But it does not matter the form they take; blocks can act as powerful learning tools.
As per studies, toy blocks can help children develop spatial reasoning, motor skills, hand-eye coordination, language skills, cognitive skills, and much more. Before you look to purchase building blocks for your kids, take a look at the blog below to learn more about the benefits of buying these building blocks.
Benefits of Purchasing Building Blocks
Some of the top benefits of purchasing building blocks for kids are as follows:
• Building toy blocks help promote better spatial reasoning
Many of us know there is a good link between construction play and spatial skills. For instance, when some people observed the construction activities of many preschoolers, they noticed a pattern. The kids more interested in construction and built more advanced structures performed much better on a standard spatial intelligence test.
Other people have also reported the same pattern, and though you cannot simply assume that play blocks can help children to develop greater spatial skills, there is certainly something that helps. No matter what, there is a good reason to think that construction play has developmental effects on kids.
Many studies tested the effects of structured block play on kids, and most reported that kids under 30 minutes of structured block-play sessions had displayed significant improvements in mental rotation. This is one of the simple reasons why you must let your kids engage in playing with building blocks.
• Structured block play might improve cognitive flexibility
Before you opt to purchase building toys for your kids, you must know about this benefit. Cognitive flexibility is the ability or skill to be able to shift your focus from one particular stimulus to another quickly. Playing building blocks helps your kids develop this ability, which is important for success in school.
As per various relevant studies, experts have said that playing with building blocks may help a child to improve their cognitive abilities. There have been many sessions where kids were told to participate in daily sessions of structured block play. Though dramatic changes were not immediately observed, in the end, the kids showed improvement in cognitive ability. This is true for children, primarily from families of lower social-economic status.
• Toy blocks may help with language development
It is also possible that children might get a language boost from playing with construction building blocks. There has been evidence that young children can easily develop more enhanced language skills when they often engage in regular block play. According to a study sponsored by Mega Bloks, the researchers provided blocks to middle- and low-income kids and were assigned one or two treatments.
Kids in the treatment group acquired two sets of toy plastic interlocking blocks and a set of special blocks at the start of the study, and the parents received instructions to encourage block play. At the same time, kids in the control block did not receive any blocks till the end of the study.
Parents of both groups were asked to keep diaries for their child’s activities, and they were not told the study’s actual purpose. After close to six months, each parent gave an interview, which included an assessment of their child’s verbal activities. The children who were encouraged to play with building blocks scored much higher on grammar, vocabulary, and verbal comprehension and watched less TV.
• Toy blocks may be able to stimulate problem-solving, creativity, and divergent skills
According to psychologists, there are two big problems: convergent and divergent. There is only one appropriate solution to convergent problems, but there are multiple ways to solve divergent problems. As kids can put together building blocks differently, it can be considered divergent play.
Divergent play with blocks can help prepare kids to think more creatively and solve divergent problems better. There have been experiments that have been carried out in the case of building blocks, and the end result always was that kids playing with blocks had better solutions to divergent problems than kids who did not. This is a simple reason parents must purchase building blocks for kids.
• Playing with building blocks can help kids enhance their social skills
As per various research, it is seen that kids tend to become friendlier and more social by working on cooperative construction projects. For instance, in a study of children with autism, kids who participated in playgroup sessions with toy block sessions made more social improvements compared to kids who were coached in the use of social language. It is also said that kids who work on cooperative building projects can form high-quality friendships better.
Contact General Jim’s Toys and Blocks to Purchase Building Block Sets
Contact General Jim’s Toys and Blocks store today to purchase building blocks for your kids. There you can find different themes of lego compatible building blocks that can help your kid to be entertained and improve their cognitive, language, and creativity skills.
