Building Blocks

Infant / Toddler

For infants and toddlers, block play is sensory and exploratory. Children learn how things feel, sounds, and move. These early actions support cause-and-effect, motor control, and early language as caregivers name actions and describe sensations.

Infants and toddlers will explore blocks by:

• Holding, carrying and stacking blocks,
• Clapping or banging blocks together to discover sound and vibration; and
• Learning about weight and balance through simple actions – such as twisting a wrist while holding a block or lifting block of different sizes.

As you play, sit close and engage in parallel play, doing similar actions alongside your child. An invitation to connect with your child through asking questions and narrating play to build vocabulary:

• Reflect: You’re holding a big block. It feels heavy. (sensory vocabulary and action verbs)
• Label: You look curious about that sound.
• Ask: What happens if we clap the blocks together?

Some ideas for block play: 

• take turns putting blocks in/out of a container;
• clap the blocks together and listen to the sound;
• hide blocks; and
• build a tower and invite the child to knock it down.

These small moments build the foundation for later block play and language growth.

Pre-School

For preschoolers, block play becomes more intentional. Children are developing visual discrimination, symbolic thinking, and emerging collaboration. These skills support early literacy because children begin to recognize differences in shapes, sizes, and patterns, similar to how they notice differences in letters and words. 

Common behaviors you may observe:

• lining blocks up in a row by size, shape, or color;
• stacking blocks to make towers; or
• creating enclosures for small toys.

How to support play using reflect, label, and ask:

• Reflect: You lined up all of the red blocks. Encourage planning and negotiation by offering descriptions: This block is long and big; it could be a bridge.
• Label: You seem excited about making a bridge.
• Ask: What happens if we use this block? Differently shaped blocks offer opportunities for experimentation and discovery, cause-effect.  Bridges and simple structures are often a later as children begin experimenting with balance and stability.

Some ideas for block play:

• Sort blocks by shape or color;
• Create simple bridges or enclosures; or
• Add small toys and narrate a story about the building. These additions invite creativity and cooperative building.
• "Tell me the story of this structure from beginning to end."

While block play does not require spoken language, collaborative play can lead to exchanging ideas, building stories, and planning. Invite your children to share materials, talk about their ideas, or take turns adding to a shared structure.

School-Age

For school-age children, block play is more complex and purposeful. By around age six, many children are recognizing patterns, experimenting with symmetry, and developing problem-solving skills. These skills relate to mathematical reasoning and the sequencing and prediction used in reading comprehension.

Children may:

• Build a structure with a specific purpose: a house, a bridge, or a tower;
• Create patterns or symmetry in the design: red blocks or similar shapes in same position,

• Test buildings by experimenting with balance and support

   

• Reflect: You built a tower with a door with some unique blocks.
• Label: You seem proud of how you solved that balance problem.
• Ask: Invite children to name their structure, describe its parts, or tell a story about it to support vocabulary development and narrative skills. If appropriate encourage developing problem-solving skills: Why did that side fall? What might make it stronger? What is your plan before you build?

Some ideas for block play:

• Test the stability or balance of a structure by adding or removing pieces;
• Draw or describe a structure and then build it;
• Or create a sketch of the structure that you built.