How to Help Build Your Children’s Social Skills

posted by gbowen
November 4, 2009

1040_1_smWhen you provide building block toys to preschoolers guided play activities will come easy as the children will build towers, houses, forts, corrals and more just by using their own imaginations.

Social development is one of the benefits preschoolers receive when supplied with a bulk quantity of cardboard building blocks.  Larger sized cardboard blocks, along with medium and smaller sized blocks, are the perfect way to keep your children occupied and are fun for just one child, but playing with other children makes it more interesting.

Because young children love playing with toy blocks it is easy for parents and educators to encourage children to learn to share and cooperate with others.  As children grow, they, along with their little friends will learn to work together to build various structures. 

Parents and educators can observe social skills that need to be worked on and correct and lead in a fun environment without hurting children’s self-esteem.  

Bulk quantities of blocks are available online from All I Can Imagine and are recommended when two or more children will be playing at one time.


add comment | Comments (0)...

box-40-pc-set-larger-sizeProviding your young children with a set of multi-colored cardboard building blocks as early as possible is recommended by educators and doctors. Because these are open-ended toys, kids of any physical and skill level can have fun.

Boys and girls can begin to sort their kids building blocks by color and eventually they will learn the names of the colors.  Toy blocks are also excellent for introducing math. Children can put the blocks toys in order by color to practice counting, or they can count all the blocks themselves to learn how to count objects.

As your children are ready you can introduce games where they can use their building block toys to experiment with addition and subtraction. Have your children horizontally stack several toy blocks of one color and count as they do so.  Ask them to remove one or two and then re-count the blocks to teach the method of subtraction.

Physical, hands on learning is a great method to introduce a new lesson and fun too!


add comment | Comments (0)...

Classroom Play with Kids Building Blocks

posted by gbowen
October 4, 2009

girls-with-40-pc-set-blocksClassroom play with blocks is sure to be your children’s favorite time of the day.  And when you encourage your children to use props such as stuffed animals, trucks, cars road signs they will have even more creative and fun play with their kids building blocks.

Some play time ideas using cardboard building blocks are to let each child use only a small number of toys building blocks while they play on a mat of their own and encourage children to build horizontally rather than vertically.

Use tape, mats, etc. to define a child’s play area and have them plan and build with their blocks toys within a given area and if you can find a large refrigerator box have them build in that box for extra fun.

By rotating the types of blocks toys you give your children, wood, cardboard, plastic, or foam, you can provide the types, colors and feel of many toys to entertain children of all tastes.


add comment | Comments (0)...

The More the Merrier

posted by gbowen
September 8, 2009

kidszone-centraliparks-3-80-percent-sizeLearning social skills such as working and planning with others is an important trait.  Children begin learning such skills at an early age.

When children spend time at day care centers, kids zones, Sunday schools and other places where there are many children it is a good idea to provide them with a large quantity of cardboard building blocks.

Giant sized kids building blocks are manufactured by Smart Monkey Toys here is the USA. Made from 50% recycled cardboard their blocks are crush proof and are coated with a drool-proof coating. These blocks are known as ImagiBRICKS and are the same brand blocks your grandparents used to play with.

Kids will have multiple opportunities to create, build, stack and knock down their structures and when provided bulk quantity blocks they will have better opportunities, while playing with a larger group of children, to let their imaginations run wild.

Spatial skills as well as increased muscles and coordination (by stacking and walking/weaving in and around structures), are skills that can be increased when children have giant building blocks in their play areas.


add comment | Comments (0)...

Creating Opportunities for Children to Play Together

posted by gbowen
August 11, 2009

kidszone-centraliparks-21Children will gravitate towards a large pile of red cardboard building blocks when they get to their day care center or a fun zone play area. Open-ended toys also make the best educational children’s toys you can provide your children.
 

Sometimes you may want to start a game to play to get all the kids involved equally together. Here are a couple of suggestions to get you started.

After they children have played for a while and arranged the blocks their way, you could begin talking about how they arranged their building blocks, each child will be eager to share his thoughts on their structure.

Then you could put the cardboard blocks in a circle. All of the blocks you are using are touching and you have a space in the middle. Such a corral will open up new and exciting games the kids will provide.

Have the children work together and have some children put stack of large blocks horizontally and make columns, have one child place one block over the top and you now have a bridge that cars can go underneath allowing the children to incorporate their cars, trucks and other toys into the fun.

Whatever structure the children have built you can talk about the number of blocks used, saying, “You decided to use 6 blocks for this building, what would it look like if you added three more blocks”. If you have a set with more than one color you could select a certain child to get a blue or yellow block and add it to the already built structure.

Watching children play with their blocks you will have opportunities to see how each is developing socially and notice a shy child holding back a little. Incorporating some of the above ideas may help the shy child get involved.


add comment | Comments (0)...

customer-and-his-kids-playing-with-rainbow-blocks1Who is having more fun playing with the cardboard building blocks, the dad or his kids? Regardless, it is certain that these educational children’s toys will provide dad countless opportunities to monitor and help his children learn social skills.

More than manners, social skills include basic attitudes and tools all children need to learn for getting along with other people. Communicating effectively and giving and receiving are just two of the social skills children can learn when playing with kids building blocks.

Children are not born with these skills and the learning process begins at birth and continues throughout their life time.  As parents, you are your children’s most important teachers and providing your children with educational children’s toys will enable you to play with them or watch them play and to softly interact and direct their play so as to teach appropriate social skills

Open-ended toys come with no rules. As you watch your children play you will be able to tell if your children are able to share.  As the children begin to build a structure you will see if they work together in unison or if they insist on their own way.

As children it is a challenge to be aware of others’ points of view and to learn how to get along.  Despite differences or misunderstandings a mom and dad can interact during their children’s play time and instill healthy social skills in each child.

Stacking and building toys are great fun for children trying out their early problem-solving skills and are fun for dad too.


add comment | Comments (0)...

The Next Generation of Fort Building

posted by Fun4MyChild
July 9, 2009

cardboard-building-blocks

It seems like every kid has an inherent desire to build forts. But this can often leave parents less than pleased, because the building materials are usually your nice sheets, couch cushions, or other items you’d rather not be used as fortification. But you don’t want to discourage this kind of play because it encourages an active imagination as well as concrete building skills.

That’s why so many parents who want to salvage their sheets turn to cardboard building blocks. These are surprisingly sturdy, but they are also lightweight, and this makes them the perfect material for your children to build the most intense and complicated forts possible. Your kids are also sure to enjoy the fact that they won’t have to dismantle the forts at night when parents would normally demand the couch cushions back.


add comment | Comments (0)...