“Here’s a circle!” calls out two-year-old Eleanor.

“My mom calls that a cylinder, and it goes over here,” says four-year-old Nadia.

“A silly-der?” Eleanor is puzzled.

The room erupts in laughter as Nadia gently corrects her: “No, Eleanor, it’s a cylinder.”

Eleanor gamely gives it another try. “Oh, a silly-her?” she asks with a giggle, happy to be the center of attention.

This playful exchange continues, with Eleanor determined to say “cylinder” correctly, much to the hilarity of her friends.

Finally, she nails it: “Your mom calls this a cylinder!” Applause and dancing follow in a lighthearted celebration of Eleanor’s success.

In this vibrant block center gathering, we have all of the ingredients for deep learning. Movement, physical touch, mentoring, and experimentation are all at play.

When mistakes happen, they’re met with laughter rather than frustration and friends are always ready and willing to lend a hand.

This rich environment fosters conversation, cooperation, and problem-solving as the children engage in hands-on learning while meeting important educational standards. 

It’s nearing lunchtime, and the children in the block area have somehow caught a case of “pick up” fever.

This is rare, as many of you know. We usually have one older child who assumes the role of “organizer.” This is the child who likes to put the unit blocks in a specific place and in a specific order, while the younger children struggle just to find room on any available surface.

So when I see the blocks being organized on the shelves by attributes, I stop to observe the collaboration and child-led learning that is unfolding in front of my eyes.

“The long blocks go here,” Nadia instructs her younger friends. “If you have two shorter blocks, you can make a long block. See?”

“We can put two triangles together to make a square and stack them here,” Sasha chimes in.

The excitement in the block area is contagious as the children collaborate, explore, and learn together.

As I observe Saaliha, I can almost see the wheels turning in her mind. She carefully experiments with the blocks, turning them this way and that, determined to find the right fit. It’s deep thinking at its finest. When she sees a friend successfully place a block, she mimics her friend’s technique and—success! There’s no grand celebration, just a quiet determination to find another matching block to solidify her learning.

This is where the magic of hands-on learning happens. Saaliha’s brain might not have grasped these concepts on paper, but the tactile experience of handling blocks and using vocabulary in context has helped her put the pieces of the puzzle together.

As educators, we need to focus on making learning real. The Early Learning Standard is met, but more importantly, Saaliha is developing critical cognitive skills in a way that feels natural and engaging.

These vibrant moments of play offer invaluable opportunities for observation. During these times, we can step back and truly witness the learning that is happening in front of us. 

The block center is often the epicenter of these play buzz moments. Blocks are universally appealing and developmentally appropriate for young children, making them an essential resource in any early childhood setting.

If your program doesn’t have a dedicated block area, consider advocating for one. A well-designed block center can enrich the life of every child and help foster the development of a wide variety of skills.

If you already have a block area, try to carve out longer periods of time for uninterrupted play. Get down on the floor, observe the learning, and check off the early learning standards that the children are meeting. You’ll see so much happening in that corner of your early childhood center, from math and science to geography and art!

The block center is more than just a space for play: It’s a rich environment for building cognitive, social, and emotional skills.

Through block play, children learn about shapes, sizes, and spatial relationships—all while practicing essential communication and cooperation skills.

Let’s embrace these moments of discovery and learning. By fostering a playful atmosphere, you are not only meeting educational standards but also fostering a lifelong love of learning.

So, let’s dive into the block corner and watch our young learners thrive!

Truth be told, I did not write today’s blog.

Written by past blogger Jen Asimow, this post dates back to December 2014. Although seven years have passed, Jen’s words still ring true and remain relevant.

Her classic post, Top 10 Ways to Keep Calm This Holiday Season, is a welcome and much-needed reminder that we can find and cultivate calm as we weather the storm of COVID variants, holiday parties, family interactions, travel schedules, cooking, housecleaning, holiday-gift shopping and the dreaded supply-chain disruptions that threaten to derail shipments of eagerly awaited holiday gifts.

We are the constants in the lives of young children and—like most things that pertain to early childhood—we need to keep in mind that “less is more.”

Keep it simple and cut the curriculum in half this month if necessary.

As educators, we know that this month is crazier than it needs to be. So be kind to yourself, your staff and your students. Many programs simplify life by celebrating the seasons and removing all of the “themed” expectations that are scheduled around the holidays.

So take a deep breath, resolve to take the road less traveled and read Jen’s post. With COVID adding an extra layer of stress this holiday season, you’ll be glad you did!

Top 10 Ways to Keep Calm This Holiday Season

by Jen Asimow

December 3, 2014

Unless you work in a faith-based program, the holiday season should be almost non-existent in your classroom. Some of the December holidays are rooted firmly in religious teachings and others are celebrated by specific cultures. None of them have a place in diverse and publicly funded programs.

That does not mean that we should ignore them altogether. Children will arrive each day with stories about the comings and goings of extended family members, hopes for expected gifts or reasons for missed school days. They may be exhausted, irritable, bleary-eyed or wrung-out. They may be overly excited or revved up. All of these emotions will require a steady hand and a caring ear.

This is the time of year when hopes are inflated and dashed, when tummies hurt from eating too much and when bedtimes are ignored and exhausted children still have to get up and get to school. So I have come up with my Top 10 List for Keeping it Calm this holiday season.

“Look! The people blocks are in a line and they crash at the bottom,  just like when we play on the slide!”

This is a lightbulb moment as Evelyn transfers knowledge gleaned from a previous play experience into her current hands-on learning. A chain-reaction domino fall during today’s block play reminds Evelyn of waiting in line, forming a chain with her friends and banging into her friends at the bottom of the slide.

Learning is not learning unless it is applied to something real. This is the key to unlocking an understanding of math, science and reading skills.

Evelyn is beginning to “see” and retain her play epiphanies, building a rich experiential foundation that will help her make the most of her learning adventures today and in the years to come.

Soon, more young explorers join Evelyn at the table and our outdoor classroom grows quiet as the children engage in their own investigations with their favorite, people-shaped blocks.

We love blocks for so many reasons, but mainly because block play naturally adapts to the developmental level of the child. This is a great time to document the different math and science standards that our early learners are meeting. It’s also a good time to observe the mentoring and scaffolding that takes place as our young friends take their skills to the next level.

Our morning of block play turns out to be a great opportunity for the children to hone their fine-motor and problem-solving skills while developing traits such as patience and determination.

Because the blocks (or dominoes) do not have to be evenly spaced to set up a chain reaction, this is an activity that even our two-year-olds can master.

“Ugh, I am so frustrated!” declares Noah with a laugh. The children use the word “frustrated” many, many times during the activity because they enjoy mastering a new word (and because every other child at the table is using it), rather than as a true expression of frustration.

This is play! It is also a wonderful opportunity to share math and science vocabulary words such as force, push, speed, predict, hypothesis, distance, length and probability. I toss these words out like seeds to be planted for future understanding. Some of the children grasp these vocabulary words immediately and incorporate them into a new lexicon that reflects their growing understanding of mathematical and scientific principles.

“Hey! You are in my way!” shouts Eve as her line of block people intersects with Sally’s. I watch as Sally takes notice with an air of quiet concentration. “I know! Let’s make a square!” Eve shouts again before Sally can problem-solve her way out of the temporary crisis. Suddenly, we have collaboration and a new plan. We are creating shapes and timing our push-offs to coincide with those of our friends. We have teamwork and data analysis to see if the plan will work, where the blocks will meet and who will “win”!

Our morning of block people play takes off in many directions. They are counting and creating lines and curves and talking about direction and using words like far, near, behind, in front of and flat. This is geometry! They are also using words like never, impossible, probably and always—the language of data analysis and probability.

Jamie is quietly working on a whole new investigation. He has moved on to stacking, which takes a bit more patience and determination, and he really is getting frustrated! He has a plan and he knows what he wants to do, but the slightest movement on the table sends his circus act crashing down.

Jamie is our busy, rambunctious, always thinking, always moving friend. When he slows down enough to work on a project like this stacking challenge, he gives it the same 100% effort that he gives to nearly every activity in his day.

When we give children the materials and the time to explore and play, we can relax and remember that this is learning. This approach helps form the successful students and problem-solvers of the future!

Earlier this month, we talked about the math explosion that took place during our block play. I shared the delight of capturing a play buzz to knock out early learning standards through play. To my astonishment, our play buzz continued all the way through our pickup activities and, let me just say, that never happens! We usually have one older “organizer” who likes to put the unit blocks in their specific spaces, but the younger children struggle just to find any shelf in the room that will work. So, when I saw the empty shelves actually being organized in order, I took note.

“Here’s a circle!” calls out two-year-old Eleanor. “That goes here. My mom calls this a cylinder,” says four-year-old Noah. “A silly-der?” asks a confused two-year-old. “No, a cylinder!” A burst of giggles is followed by the two-year-old trying again and again and again—to the hysterical delight of her friends. Finally, the play moment is over and the two-year-old impresses the group by naming the block correctly: “Your mom calls this a cylinder!” Applause and dancing ensue. During this rare but engaging pick-up period, we have all the elements needed to build the brain. We have movement. We have physical touch. We have mentoring and experimenting. When we fail, there is not a meltdown in sight, because there is always a friend nearby to show us the correct solution. We have conversations, rationalizing, cooperation, observation, design and data collection, as well as sorting, grouping and problem-solving. We have hit the nirvana of meeting learning standards with hands-on learning and communicating!

By turning a block in a different direction, it completely changes how it fits on the shelf. I watch the little wheels turning in Saaliha’s head. It’s deep thinking, she is silent, she tries different ways, she puts the block down only to pick it back up to try again. She sees another friend place a block in effortlessly. She turns her block in the same direction and tries again. Success! There is no celebration. There is a search for another matching block to cement this learning in her brain.

Early Learning Standard 9.A.ECe gets checked off the list! I am not convinced that Saaliha’s brain was ready for this on paper. The brain may not have been able to see it on a worksheet. When we put the objects in their hands and the vocabulary in their world, the pieces of the puzzle can make their way into the brain. Make the learning real!

As educators, we are so often running around putting out fires, that the documentation is a struggle. Play buzzes give us that time to stand back and actually observe the learning that is happening in front of us. This is a great time to just put your phone or camera on video. Target the group or the individual child you need data on. When we are indoors, the majority of our play buzz moments will come in that block room. Blocks are always developmentally correct for the child who is interacting with them. If your program doesn’t have a block area, try to make it happen. It will enrich the lives of everyone in the room. If you have a block area, carve out a nice LONG period of time to get down on the floor and start the play buzz. I promise you, your assessment will be met.

Young children need opportunities to explore creative opportunities as well, and often do in an art center, craft center, or dramatic play center in a classroom.  To the advantage of young children today, they have many more avenues than adults did to explore creative expression.  With the movement of maker spaces into elementary schools, young children are being given the opportunity to explore making, tinkering, designing, building, problem solving, collaborating, and communicating in new ways.  With the advancement of approaches to classroom spaces, alongside the significant advances in the devices we carry in our bags and pockets, making and tinkering now has a dimension known only to children in the last ten years.

Early childhood educators know that young children love fantasy.  They embrace their imagination whenever possible, becoming a new character or hero in a quick moment.  With the advances in our technology, we can help children embrace their imagination in ways not possible before.  Toca Builders, an application created by Toca Boca, offers the opportunity to use tiny robots to help you build your own land. 

In order to learn more about Toca Builders, take a look at this video:

TOCA BUILDERS VIDEO

As you can see, in this application, as children build and rebuild, they simultaneously explore and nurture their developing creativity and spatial sense.  Within the building, children gain exposure to early concept around computational thinking.  Within coding and programming, users eventually learn that computers and robots do only what a programmer tells it to do.  Toca Builders gently introduces this concept with the inclusion of friendly robots to help the child execute their commands for their builds.

In order to maintain a more explicit math skill based approach, consider these challenge examples for the use of Toca Builders:

• Build a tower that is more than 8 blocks tall
• Build a house that is less than 10 blocks wide
• As you build, determine if it is possible to construct a building in the shape of a circle or an oval?
• Can you create a building that is rectangle on the bottom and square towards the top?

There are a variety of applications out there that offer children creative outlets, Toca Builders is one of the fantastic few.  If you are looking for a step up , consider using Blokify, an application that focus on single structure, but provides the opportunity, with the help of an adult, to export their creation in a (STL) file format that can be brought to a 3D printer for printing. In order to learn more about Blokify by taking a look at this video:

Blokify Video

Have fun building virtually!

So, how does the block are relate to math?

Blocks are the visual representation of geometric concepts. Blocks can be any size, from very small cubes to large wooden hollow blocks. They come in almost every shape available and are three dimensional; such as squares, triangles, ramps, planks, tubes, columns, arches, rectangles, cubes, spheres, half circles, etc.  By using blocks, children are actively and physically creating what they see in their minds, using spatial relationships, balance, weight, height, form of measurement, sorting, fractions and so much more. It becomes a chance for every child to become a master architect and construction foreman. Besides, building with blocks is so much more fun than matching shapes on paper.

So, how does the block area then relate to social and emotional development?

When children are gathered in the block area, building with the physical representation of geometric concepts, they are also interacting with one another. Being a shared space in most early childhood environments, block areas are often large and can accommodate between 4-6 children. The blocks are divided up between children or children work together with one common set. Negotiations take place when children both want the same plank. Children are able to take turns to each put a block on the growing tower before it falls down and everyone cheers. When building a farm with blocks and plastic farm animals, children take on roles of being the farmer or the anxious animals waiting for their food. Cars come alive as children race them on the ramps and planks, cheering each other on as they race to the finish line.  Ultimately, children interact with one another on a common and shared space to create, negotiate, problem solve, imagine and build their dream creation. Blocks are play at its finest.  Play is the best method of learning and experiencing social and emotional development.  Block play allows the seamless integration of social and emotional development and cognitive development every time.

or·der

ˈôrdər/

noun:

1. the arrangement or disposition of people or things in relation to each other according to a particular sequence, pattern, or method
2. an authoritative command, direction or instruction

 verb:

1. to put into a methodical, systematic arrangement
2. to bring about order

One of the first learning experiences I recall as a student teacher in a Boston Public School pre-k was on the subject of classroom design and organization. Our room was especially small and we shared it with 16 three and four-year olds. “Order” was not only a math concept we wanted to explore with the children, but also a necessity in terms of keeping the materials organized for both children and teachers working together in that space on a daily basis.

The head teacher had begun the school year by sorting, according to habitat, all of the plastic animals used for imaginative play: oceans, jungle, forest, etc. Taped to the open bin in which they were stored (on shelves at the child’s height) was a photo of a few of those animals together with the written word of its habitat. Categorizing helped the children identify where both to find the items s/he was seeking and also return the items at clean-up. This is a system I have used not only in my classrooms, but also to an extent in my home. Using uniform, clear boxes with lids (so they can be stacked if needed) for the storage of ALL playthings and classroom supplies is ideal. This way, everyone can see what is inside. On the container you can adhere the laminated photograph. Alternatively, I’ve used wide packing tape over the entire width and length of the photo, which works beautifully.

The blocks area was another place in need of an organization system so the many various shapes (½ unit, unit, double unit, quad unit, pillar, ½ circle, ¼ circle, pillar, roman arch, triangle, arch, circle curve, crossing, y-switch, elliptical curve) could be quickly found and put away with relative ease. We cut out from colored contact paper a template of each shape and adhered them on the area of the shelves where children would stack the matching blocks.

Having a system in place for children’s personal belongings also helps everyone keep track of items. Individual and personalized hooks and/or cubbies where children hang their backpacks and jackets on a daily basis is preferred so that children can come to expect where to find their items from home. We alphabetized the names along the row of hooks, and below each name was a different color swatch. The color swatch (used from hardware store paint swatches) helped children who were not yet identifying their names, or first letter of their name, to recognize their hook.

Sorting classroom items by attribute (markers/pencils/crayons; red/orange/yellow; cars/trains/trucks) is an early math concept which is relevant to a child’s world. Identifying and naming shapes increases match vocabulary. To take it a little further, managing to identify attributes of objects, and then placing them where they belong, empowers kids to help maintain and respect their environment, keeps items organized for the community and is visually calming.