Enabling Environments: Making Spaces...Block play

We want to provide more block play for our two-year-olds. What sort of blocks should we provide and how should it be planned and organised?

Blocks and block play are very important for children's learning and development. Because there is no right or wrong way to play with them, they are the perfect open-ended resource and they are so versatile that they support learning across all areas of the curriculum.

Early years specialists have been studying children's block play for many years and have observed that although children have very individual styles in their block play, there are still some developmental stages that they seem to move through. Very young children are interested in blocks as something to hold and carry, to drop and manipulate and to put in and take out of containers. This is all-important developmentally for the block play that is to come later. It is rather like the babbling that comes at the beginning of speech and the scribbling that is essential before drawing can develop.

Very young children are enjoying the sensory experience of feeling and handling the blocks as well as expending energy in the physical motion of moving them around as they explore and experiment with them (Wellhausen and Kieff 2001:41). Providing block play for two-year-olds at this 'scribbling' stage is really important and it makes good sense to consider the best way to organise and plan for it.

TYPES OF BLOCKS

Mini hollow blocks and mini unit blocks are particularly good for this age group. Hollow blocks are easy to grasp and handle and not too heavy to carry. There is still effort involved, which is important for physical development. Full sets of blocks are needed for older children but they can be a bit overwhelming for two-year-olds. Perhaps just provide a few at first and gradually increase the number as the children grow more experienced with them. Two or three mini hollow blocks can be put together to create a structure that can be sat on, straddled or climbed over because it's a horse, a car, a motorbike or a bench. A few more and you can make a house to climb inside.

Mini unit blocks feel good in little hands. Two-year-olds explore the properties of blocks with all their senses, just like everything else that's new to them - the look and feel of them, the smell of them (especially when they are new) and probably the taste of them too. With one in either hand, you can knock them together to make a very satisfying sound.

At this age, children are not so much interested in building with them as carrying them around and emptying them in and out of containers. But some children will be beginning to arrange them on the floor. Laying them out in a row perhaps, pushing and straightening them in a line to make a roadway or train track. They may also begin to stack them into small towers, ready to knock down again.

There will be lots of repetition - any new block activity that is pleasing and satisfying will be repeated just like a favourite rhyme or story or physical activity. Some children will spend time watching and appreciating other more experienced children, building and constructing and discovering the possibilities of blocks.

As the Froebel Block Play Research Group found, 'Just as children explore and play with vocal sounds in their early speech, they explore and play with spatial relationships in early block play' (Pat Gura ed. 1992:27). Moving and handling, stacking and arranging encourages children to explore what they know about 'on top of', 'next to', 'under' and 'behind'. This stage is crucial to what comes later in block play development and repeating this process over and over again is not only building manipulative and motor skills, it is also building neural pathways in the brain.

SYMBOLIC PLAY

There is another important aspect to block play at this stage - symbolic play. A two-year-old will pick up a block, hold it to their ear and talk to mummy on the phone. They will push it along the floor and tell you it's a car or a train or a digger. This is often when they will invite a grown-up to join in the pretend play.

Adults can also initiate their own symbolic play as a way of engaging children with the blocks. We can use them to tell or improvise a story as an alternative to story props. An adult playing on their own with the blocks is bound to draw attention and curiosity - and then you have an audience ready for a story.

At other times it is important to observe rather than direct the play and allow children to explore the blocks in their own way. Don't spoil the moment with lots of questions, but be ready to provide feedback for the non-verbal representations a child shares with you in their block play (Athey, 1990).

STORAGE

Hollow blocks are easily stacked in the block area and small numbers of unit blocks for the very young can be simply organised in baskets. Choose just a few shapes from the mini units/unit blocks and keep each shape in its own basket with a laminated photo label attached. It's fun to find the right basket and helps with shape and size discrimination.

More experienced children can organise full sets of unit blocks on to open shelves, which also provide useful partitioning for block areas.Having a separate block area means that block play doesn't get disturbed and creations can be displayed/left out and revisited the next day. But you should still be prepared for your two-year-olds to enjoy 'transporting' the blocks all around the setting.

With thanks to Dawn Gosling, teacher at Firbank Children's Centre, for examples of block play with two-year-olds, and to Helen Huleatt, Community Playthings, for some background information

REFERENCES

• Constructivist Approach to Block Play in Early Childhood by Karyn Wellhousen and Judith E Kieff, Thomson Learning (2001)

• Exploring Learning - Young Children and Blockplay edited by Pat Gura with the Froebel Blockplay Research Group, Paul Chapman Publishing (1992)

• Extending Thought in Young Children by Chris Athey, Paul Chapman Publishing (1990)

COMMUNITY PLAYTHINGS BLOCK PLAY RESOURCES

Unit and Hollow Blocks as well as Mini versions of each are available from Community Playthings. Prices for the Mini versions start at £80.00 (for unit blocks) and £165.00 (for an introductory set of hollow blocks). Block carts are also available. More information on the value of block play is provided in Foundations - The Value of Unit Block Play (DVD) and in a selection of articles including I Made a Unicorn - Open-ended Play with Blocks and Simple Materials. All can be downloaded free at: www.communityplaythings.co.uk

This feature is sponsored by Community Playthings

www.communityplaythings.co.uk