Building for Fun – and so much more!

If you are on a beach with Uncle Hans & his friend Jack-in-the-Box, you’re probably an Imagine That preschooler waiting for the cruise ship to pick you up and whisk you off on the next leg of the journey (in your musical mind!)  And while you’re on the island, you should build sand castles.

Of course, that’s what we’re doing in class.  (If you’re not in Imagine That right now, you can find out how we build sand castles indoors during many of our upcoming Spring Mini Session(no longer available) and Summer Classes – like Creatures at the Ocean, ABC Out & About, 1,2,3 Octopus & Me, and On the Road.)

Building is a childhood favorite and jam-packed with learning.  Read on to discover how building structures strengthens each of the following developmental areas:

Cognitive: Building lays the foundation for scientific concepts such as gravity, balance, weight, and stability.  Children engage in problem solving.  “If I add another block on this side, it falls over.  Let me try it over here.”  Mathematical concepts abound: depth, width, height, length, measurement, volume, area, classification, shape, symmetry, equality (same as), and inequality (more than, less than).

Language:  Building is accompanied by conversation.  Older children talk about what they’ve built, why they’ve built it, and use their creation as the setting for pretend play. With children of all ages, adults can describe parts of the structure, ask questions, and make suggestions.

Emotional:  The best part of building a tower can be the glee of knocking it down.  Or, sometimes it falls before you want it to and you need to work through disappointment and rebuild.  (This is a great life lesson. There are many times when our first plan doesn’t work out and we need to persevere and try it again.)

Social:  Children need to learn to respect the building others have done.  They share and practice give and take so that everyone has the pieces they need.

Physical:  It takes a steady, controlled hand to add a block to the top of the tower.

-posted by Miss Anita, whose boys love to build with the wrapped rolls of toilet paper when we bring them home from Costco, and by taping boxes and cardboard tubes together, and with pillows and couch cushions, and with wooden blocks, and with…