Elevated and Esteemed

Wooden blocks may not seem as sophisticated as some of the toys seen on television or found in toy stores.  Yet, they are wonderful for children play with, because they involve the child as a whole.  This artist is using his whole body and mind as he works.  He uses his hands to dig for pieces that he wants, employs his larger muscles to move around his creation and get a different perspective, engages his senses as he feels the shapes and textures of the different materials, and employs his critical thinking skills as he balances his structure according to both weight and visual symmetry.

Blocks are also a great material for children making art because they grow with them.  Infants and toddlers enjoy simply touching and gripping larger, textured blocks.  As toddlers, they develop more muscle control and are able to combine blocks, stack them, or line them up.  Two-year-olds may demonstrate their first attempts at building structures, and show the beginnings of fantasy play.  Around age three, children learn how to balance and fit pieces together to build sturdier towers, then bridges and enclosures.  At ages three and four, the ability to recognize designs and patterns emerges, which is when towers and buildings become works of art.  In kindergarten and early primary grades, blocks allow children to recreate structures, cities and landscapes from everyday life.  The artist is depicted doing this in the images, as he considers what he has seen in the world around him.

He goes on to work with some of his peers, as they collaborate on different ideas and construction methods.  Socially, blocks encourage children to make friends and cooperate.  Large block play may be a young child's first experience playing in a group, while small block play may encourage an older child to work with others in solving problems.  Physically, children build strength in their fingers and hands, and increase hand-eye coordination, when they reach for, pick up, stack, or fit blocks together.  Intellectually, blocks help children learn across many academic subjects. Young children develop their vocabularies as they learn to describe sizes, shapes, and positions.  Preschoolers and kindergarteners develop math skills by grouping, adding, subtracting and eventually multiplying with blocks.  Older children make early experiments with gravity, balance, and geometry.  Creatively, blocks offer children the chance to make their own designs, and the satisfaction of creating structures that did not exist before.  

Children value their own block structures whether or not they represent specific things.  The artist here remained extremely engaged as he worked and was eager to present a dialogue about his creation.  He not only erected a complex structure, but felt pride in what he had made.  These skills help young artists to understand different perspectives and take steps necessary for success.  Such opportunities to practice design, representation, balance and stability carries over to other areas in life.  They allow the artist to develop techniques and interests of his own, while using them to create, solve problems, and challenge himself to build something bigger, stronger, more complex, and uniquely representative of his thoughts.