Building.

[rivka]

For Christmas, my parents gave Alex a lovely set of unit blocks, because she'd really enjoyed playing with the ancient unit blocks she discovered in their toy closet. At that point, she knew one thing to do with blocks: stack them on top of each other until they fell over. She had trouble figuring out what would and wouldn't balance, so they tended to fall over sooner, rather than later. After a few weeks, she pretty much stopped playing with them.

In the last month or so, she's started building again. Really building. Every-block-out-of-the-box building. She builds with such seriousness and sense of purpose. Here is a "castle with a tower" she made this morning:



The interesting thing to me is that she's not picking up where she left off. She's building large, complex structures in which the pieces balance well. It seems like it must be maturation, rather than practice - she didn't work and work with blocks until she figured out how to really build, she just got old enough to really build. That's kind of cool.

Another view of the castle:



Another day, she decided to build a house that was big enough to play in:

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

There's also this thing called passive learning, which appears to be important to how one's brain, well, learns.

In other words, you practice a skill a bunch, and then walk away for a while, and come back--and you will be better at it. Your brain seems to need time to establish new neural pathways.

Freaky, huh?

Also, I swear I used to build that same castle, but my dinosaurs were plastic.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I adore unit blocks. At work, the kids' favorite accessories for them, besides little animals (everything from dinos to My Little Pony), are small cars and Brio-type trains.

They're a useful tool, too, for illustrating to parents who are concerned that we don't teach their children that blocks are "pre-math," they learn about correspondences, fractions, etc. (Sand is also pre-math, and pretend-play is important pre-reading. One learns how to talk to people in ways they want to hear things.)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Oh, by the way, check out the toys at that link. The firetruck was finally retired a year ago after about 50 years of repainting, as it was falling apart. The red-and-brown carpet train is Brio-brand, and those were made in the late forties and the fifties. We have two, actually, one a bit bigger. There are old-style Playskool people there, and My Little Pony, and I think the dog is a Beanie baby. The tiny fire trucks are mostly Matchbox, I think. That old green tow-truck/crane has a millon layers of paint on it. It's probably fifty years old. (The school was built in 1956.) Basically, if kids like it, it stays in play and the repairs continue. Nothing has batteries.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Do you think she'd have the interest and patience to do a gingerbread house for Christmas?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

No. I'd say that wouldn't be for at least a couple more years.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! That's what it's called!

Long ago and far away, I had a job that involved making cotton candy. The first weekend, I really sucked at it. The middle of the week, I dreamed about it. The second weekend, I was really good at it.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what happens to me with all Important New Skills. To the point where I can't be sure I'm onto it until I've had the dreams...

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Hee! My own experience this week would bear that out.

I went from 'stupid fingers, stupid pointy sticks, who wants to knit socks anyway?' after my last attempt to picking it up again a few months later and have now knocked out one and a half lumpy but unmistakable socks in four days. Not with practice practice practice but with try, fail, try, fail, walk away*, come back later**, oh look success**.

* Usually with extra additional swearing.

** FSVO later being anywhere from 2 hours to six months.

*** In this instance success equals a recognizable whatever it was I was attempting to make. Not a good one, neccessarily, just recognizable.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

My niece, age 9 now, always wants me to build something with her construction set that can reach the ceiling of my parents' house. Because of this, she's gotten to learn about intermediate support, and I've had to stretch to place top pieces because although I'm 6'5", my parents have a vaulted ceiling ;)

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Me too. In fact, I've known this mode of learning for a number of years, even though I didn't have a name. But I know that for myself, generally speaking, it's best for me always to take a break for a few days (if possible) or at least a chunk of time, and then the skill/project sort of explodes with competence.

N.

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

So that's what those blocks are called. I tried asking for those for Eddie for Christmas and we just got lotsa Duplo. Which is good, but I love those blocks.

It's got to be so awesome to watch her CREATE something. Neat.

Oh, and Eddie's got those same pajamas. I remember when you posted about them, frustrated that girl pajamas were so girly, and you found those in the boys section. I wondered if they were the same ones then, and now I see they are. Did you notice that the dinosaur glows in the dark?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Did you notice that the dinosaur glows in the dark?

Yes! She's got a rocket ship pair too, with red and white stripes.

I highly recommend these Melissa & Doug blocks - it's so hard to find unit blocks for less than $100 anywhere else, and the quality of the blocks is great. They're lovely to touch and hold - they just sort of compel play, even from adults.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

We've got blocks too, and whenever adults-without-children visit us, they all end up sitting on the floor and building stuff. Though maybe that says more about our friends than anything.

Elena loves to build tall tall towers - to see how tall they can get before they fall over. She's actually quite good at it.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I like that kind of learning. Some years back, I visited Dad at the ranch, and we went out and shot at cold cream bottles in a dump. I had an air rifle. After a decade or more of not shooting anything, my aim was better than ever. I should try it again. It was fun, and now it's been twenty years.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Whenever you mention unit blocks, I'm reminded of a set of blocks my mother found at a yardsale or fleamarket or somewhere. I'm not sure what to call them; they were wooden cubes, about an anch on each side, in various dark/muted colors. Good for teaching counting and arithmetic, but also good for building. (We had actual unit blocks, too, though I didn't know what they were called then.)

[lcohen]

this reminds me, for some reason, of a favorite book by e. nesbit called the magic city where two children build a city out of blocks plus stuff they have around and then inhabit the city they created. edward eager wrote a book that in part referenced that book called knight's castle. i read them long ago, not with an eye towards reading to kids, so you might want to read them first or ask someone with kids, but when you get to the "reading longer books aloud" stage, those might be enjoyable. (they probably are somewhat sexist about what boys vs. girls do but they do both have both boys and girls as active builders and actors in the stories--i do recall that.)