About Wooden Unit Blocks

Wooden Building Blocks

Many parents know that Kindergarten and Preschool teachers favor blocks as an educational toy and that many states mandate by law their inclusion in classrooms and daycare centers.  Oddly, they may believe that this refers to ABC Blocks and Alphabet Blocks, but this is not so.  The blocks that are useful to young children and demanded as educational toys are Unit Building Blocks like those sold here.  This is not to say that Alphabet Blocks are a bad thing - I love them - but the Kindergarten Curriculum that specifies "blocks" refers to Building Blocks because their modular properties teach important lessons about mathematics.

How Many Blocks and what shapes does a Child need?

Rule of thumb - we think that a child of 5 years or older needs about 200 blocks, and a bright six year old can easily use more.  Two children need a smaller number per child (maybe 125), and children less than 5 need a smaller number (Maybe 100).  A classroom with ten children can work with 750 blocks.  But no matter how many blocks you buy, your children will run out of blocks - run out of some shapes sooner than others, and go through periods when they are employing a lot of one shape, and other periods when employing a different shape.  Building aqueducts requires a lot of arches.  Building buildings requires a lot of rectangles.  Building the Lincoln Memorial requires a lot of columns.  The only way to handle this dilemma is to buy a foundation set and add to it over time as you observe your children running out of this or that.  We sell open stock and booster kits for this purpose, and there is little need to buy all of your blocks at one time.

Kits for the Individual Family

Buying Kits for your family is different than buying kits for schools:  the blocks are identical, but the range and composition of shapes is different.   Children will begin to play with toy unit blocks from around the age of 3 years and will continue to do so until they are 10 or 11 years old.  Obviously, the shapes required become more extensive as the child matures, and considerably more varied than those required in schools.   School kits are too primitive for home play by a eight year old.  In order to build the stuff that will engage a third grader - a wide range of pieces is necessary to make complicated structures.  Children play with blocks for a very extended period of time, and a good set of blocks will last for many generations.  They are virtually indestructible, and we see sets of blocks that are fifty years old and older.

Kits for Schools

Buying kits for schools is a simpler proposition.  For one thing, these are primarily used in pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade.  Many of the authors, teachers, and other authorities on Block Play are focused on these younger children, and while the sets they recommend are quite large, the range of shapes is narrow.  This is because younger children are not ready to build anything recognizable and don't have the coordination to construct buildings. Instead, they are learning very complicated things about shapes and their relationships.  This problem is self-fulfilling: teachers note that older children lose interest - but this is because the block sets they employ are too primitive for an older child.  (We do wish that some teacher would try to pitch a book more at third and fourth graders - but alas, this is not the case).  Our school kits are made with certain text references in mind as these often include recommendations about an appropriate set for classroom use.  We are always ready to contemplate a new school set if your school or district has a specific requirement.  We also sell bulk boxes of certain shapes in order to boost your current inventory.