Blocks And 3d Puzzles

Years ago ADHD was mysterious.  It was not openly spoken about and there was less information available as compared to nowadays.

Today, parents, as well as doctors and educators are faced with a growing number of children who have been labeled as having ADHD.  This is frightening and you as a parent may easily become overwhelmed as what to do or how to make sure your child may have ADHA.

Autism is a word that covers delays.  You may also notice unusual developmental patterns in your child’s development.  The delay could be in communication/language, social interaction and/or behavior. The delays could very well be across many areas in your child’s development.

You will begin to notice these delays by the age of three but can be detected as early as 18 months.  One simple thing you can do is to watch your child as he plays with toys that are meant to increase his motor skills and see how, and if you believe his skills are actually improving.

Beware also of how well your child can put together small objects, complete puzzles, do craft work and use a scissors (just to name a few activities).  Normal development in children is essential and children must learn to accurately and effectively use their smaller muscles in their hands.  These intrinsic muscles will be used to complete many essential functions for the rest of their lives.

All three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Jim Irwin agreed they could not see the Great Wall in China from the moon. But, over 41.8 million foreign visitors to China saw this great structure in 2004.

Tourism to the Great Wall increased because of President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 and with this increase in tourism sections of the Wall were restored. The Chinese government recognized the Wall as a unifying symbol of their nation after the death of Mao Zedong.

The men who designed this wall once were kids themselves and I wonder if they had building block toys to play with.  You may have a future engineer in your family right now. Someday he/she may design and build a new wonder of the world.  Help his/her creativity bloom with  cardboard building blocks. The set pictured has both construction cinder blocks and timber blocks.  Schools can order bulk quantity building block toys.

Promoting open-ended play time for your children with building block toys will be one of the best ways to enhance their learning and increase their fine motor skills.

There is a legend, that a helpful dragon traced out the course of the Great Wall for the workforce and the builders subsequently followed the tracks of the dragon ( Jan, Michael. 2001. The Great Wall of China. New York, NY: Abberville Publishing Group) but more likely is the fact that it was probably men who were once children playing with blocks.

The Great Wall has often been compared to a dragon. In China, the dragon is a protective divinity and is synonymous with springtime and vital energy. The Chinese believed the earth was filled with dragons which gave shape to the mountains and formed the sinew of the land.

During the Ming dynasty, nearly one million soldiers were said to defend the Great Wall from “barbarians” and non-Chinese.

The manpower to build the Great Wall came from frontier guards, peasants, unemployed intellectuals, disgraced noblemen, and convicts. In fact, there existed a special penalty during the Qin and Han dynasties under which convicted criminals were made to work on the Wall.

Before the Ming dynasty, the wall was built with rammed earth, adobe, and stone. About 70% is made from rammed earth and adobe. Bricks were used after the Ming dynasty.

The Chinese invented the wheelbarrow and used it extensively in building the Great Wall.

A section of the Great Wall in the Gansu province may disappear in the next 20 years due to erosion.

Kids in all countries love toys and our troops are being equipped with wooden toys to take to Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an article I read online from the gazette.com (Colorado Springs), a group of senior’s have a woodworking club and have crafted several hundred small wooden cars and animals for Fort Carson bound for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Springs Scrollers got most of their materials, according to the article, from friends in the Pikes Peak Whittlers, which supplied 12,000 wooden wheels and hundreds of quarter-inch dowels that allow the wheels to spin.

I further read that “Master Sgt. Andrew Clark, who coordinates donations at Fort Carson, said the post sent its first shipment of toys with the 43rd Sustainment Brigade, which deployed this month (March 2010)  to Afghanistan, and will send others with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team to Iraq.”

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/toys-95642-diplomacy-wooden.html#ixzz0t0PDctC8

Children have always loved the touch, smell and feel of a hand-crafted wooden toy.  Toys made of wood last longer, are safer children’s toys and can be passed down from child to child and perhaps even from one generation to another.