Bricks, balance boards, convertible wooden balance bike, assembling, embedding, stacking blocks, play dough and other puzzles are part of construction toys. They are very interesting to give to young children. Beyond the fun, they stimulate their imagination, their creativity through the learning of many situations. We talk to you about it.
Construction game
It is a toy made up of different elements that you assemble according to your wishes or according to an assembly plan provided by the manufacturer. There are many models. Small plastic bricks and wooden boards are currently among the essential references in our modern history. Buildable, built-in, stackable color blocks, plasticine, buildable cars and puzzles are also popular with children.
With a construction game, babies endlessly climb and dismantle to build shapes and objects. As long as they are able to grip with their hand, they can take full advantage of it. At the age of one, young children start by stacking colored cubes or with figures. As they grow older, constructions and fixtures become more and more elaborate.
At Kinderfeets Canada we do not currently sell construction games for children. The design of our wooden toys, however, is very similar to some of them, with their small modular parts.
What are the benefits?
- Construction games improve fine motor skills. Children will develop their manual skills by grasping and manipulating the different elements of a game. They will learn to use their hands better by grasping and releasing things on purpose. Then they will use their two hands in a coordinated way. By repeating movements, they will improve their manual skills and gain precision in their movements with these games.
- The baby will have to play with other objects, scales and carriers +for example, for the development of his gross motor skills.
- They also improve the coordination between grip and vision. This is called hand eye coordination. While grasping the elements of a construction game, the toddler must guide his hand with his eyes. He will have to stay focused for a few seconds to a few minutes on the action he is performing. It's going to take attention and persistence.
- Construction games also develop thinking, concentration, memorization and a sense of observation. Some models require, for example, to anticipate, plan and organize chronologically different actions to make a construction. This learning can be a fairly difficult exercise in concentration at first for young girls and boys.
- They stimulate the development of creativity in young boys and girls. History for them to live new experiences. They are also an opportunity to develop their imagination. As they would when playing with little figures, planes, cars, motorcycles. Parents love to give them as gifts to a child.
- Another interesting point is that they develop children's understanding of the space around them. By manipulating the different elements of a construction set, they will have to position the pieces in relation to each other. In front, behind, below, above, besides, the baby thus discovers these different spatial notions. This is also the case with the locomotive toys that he receives as a gift from his parents.
- They allow initiatives to be taken. As they play with them, babies need to decide how to arrange the different pieces to build new ones. They will learn by themselves, by trial and error, to be wrong, not to succeed. This is an opportunity for them to understand that they are free to do whatever they want to put the different parts of their toy together.
- Construction games make babies aware of their actions. They will quickly understand that there is a relationship between the different actions they take. When they stack wooden cubes to make a building. When it collapses, they see that they are responsible for its destruction. They understand that they have gone too fast, that they have badly positioned certain parts. They will thus learn to correct their actions and improve them in order to succeed.
