DIY – 5 Ways To Use Wooden Building Blocks
17 November 2016
Here are top 5 ways to use Wooden Building Blocks:
Dominoes
I used Acrylic Pens to divide the blocks and draw shapes onto each end. Dominoes are a great educational tool for shape, colour or number recognition and pairing as well as being something enjoyable you can play together with your kids.
Emotion Blocks
Talking about how children feel is so important to their ability to express themselves responsibly, recognise and control their reactions, as well as develop an empathetic emotional intelligence with others. This is a fun way to address the topic and invite children to build a face and foster discussion. Make a set of eyes, noses and mouths that can be mixed and matched. I used sharpie but acrylic pens will also work well.
Printing
Blocks left alone are a fantastic, easy to hold and solid printing tool. Dipped in thick paint you can use all of the different edges and sides to create patterns. I decided to enhance their printability but making some additions. These really were an experiment and some worked better than others. I’d say the string and foam stickers gave the clearest results but experimenting was all part of the fun. See what else you and your kids can think of to stick, wrap or add to your blocks.
Shape puzzles
By placing the blocks side by side and drawing a shape (or an image if you’re feeling creative!) you can create your own puzzles. I used acrylic deco pen. My 4yo managed this easily, and would have coped with different coloured backgrounds but these were perfectly aimed at my 2yo who used the block colours as an aid to completing the shapes.
Foil Blocks
You can do this two ways, wrap the blocks in foil yourself then allow them to be unwrapped, or set out an invitation for the child to cover the blocks themselves. It’s a great dexterity activity encouraging little hands to work hard and a valid sensory experience, provided by the crunchy, shiny and mouldable foil. If you try unwrapping you can add a colour sorting element where each block has to be grouped by colour too once revealed.
So many amazing ideas! Thank you for sharing. Will be trying them out n the near future!
Wow ! You’ve gone cap crazy and I love it! How on warmth do you find the time to do all this ??? I’ll drop my two little ones over for a cap session soon shall I ?
Xx Rita