In many colored shapes and types, wooden blocks have been found in every home for centuries. Despite their simple features, they are always a great choice for toddlers to entertain and improve their cognitive skills.

As you know, kids tend to get bored with certain toys quickly, but blocks seem to have endless possibilities for fun.  They offer to toddlers and children the chance to build all the things that come to their mind, without any limitation.

Basic mathematical concepts can be learned through play with blocks.

First of all, we have to remind that humans are born with innate mathematical skills, so they are ready for calculus since their birth. But like other innate abilities, the mathematic intelligence must be exercised in the early years of life. We, as parents, can help in this process giving our toddlers some wooden blocks. Simple and exciting, isn’t it?

Probably the careers of all great engineers, pilots, physicists etc., began with the same little wood block.

You can choose to follow your children’s lead and see what they want to build or give them a task opting for a guided version of the play.

You might challenge them asking to build a castle or a train or any other buildings with String-Along Shapes, that gives your toddler endless opportunities to build sorting by colors, shapes and patterns. In this way children will be deeply engrossed in the activity improving their attention, creativity and motor skills. As a matter of fact the solution of mathematic problems entail the skill of moving through the space.

With blocks, motor skills and coordination are trained putting a piece at the top of the construction or while children are trying not to drop the building, considering that there is nothing holding the pieces together.

Actually, moving in the space empowers the perception of things around which allows the creation of mental images as result.

Mental images are necessary for geometrical problems comprehension, or to understand a mathematical pattern, its orientation, and possible changes.

According to the task, children use a shape instead of another one, a color instead of another one, stimulating sorting of different elements in sets, that is the base of mathematic intelligence. With blocks training, older children could obtain the perception of numerousness that is the introductory step for the mathematic skill of estimate.

And if you ask your toddler to build a house or a castle and tell a story settled there, you stimulate the development of linguistic skills as well.

Moreover children can learn logic and reasoning skills when they figure out how to build a tower that will not fall down. So they start to reason about balance and symmetry concepts. If your toddler tells you “I want to be an architect”, you might want to be their first supporter giving them wooden blocks. For instance, Maple Blocks is the game that can inspire generations of builders for the diversity of shapes and colors. It may give a lot of fun for both toddlers and parents.

So if you want to push your kids’ mathematical skills development and convert them in the best problem solvers, you have to remember only one thing:  it is always the right time to play wooden blocks.

So, who is ready to play with Hape Block?