Building

The Community Playthings wooden blocks came to Upper Nursery via a capital grant from Islington Early Years Department. The first set opened by the children was met with great enthusiasm and inspired days of building. First the children just built towers that fell over very easily, but as their skills improved they started to realise that the blocks were mathematically correct and so could be used to make substantial and complex structures. After a while, the children naturally added cars, animals or fairies, to enhance their learning. Some interesting and amusing stories were told as they spent uninterrupted time fulfilling the plans that they negotiated between themselves. A continued interest in extreme weather also featured in some aspects of the designs as, after all, if one is going to build a garage and racetrack, then it must be strong enough to withstand a volcano, an earthquake or even the latest craze ‘a tornado’. All areas of the Foundation Stage curriculum were imaginatively covered by these blocks.

After a long weekend the children returned to school to find the blocks had gone back into their boxes but a large area of the room had been cleared and some very heavy long boxes had appeared. Gasps of amazement accompanied the opening of these boxes as long planks and large hollow blocks gradually got pulled from the depths. Such was the scope for construction for the builders that fluorescent yellow waistcoats were deemed necessary to warn others of ‘children at work’ and, of course, they needed hard hats. The budding architects were in their element. At first the structures were mainly horizontal but, as the children became more confident in their ability to build secure structures, they started to make them vertical. Lengths of fabric were added to make dens and rooms. The children cooperated well with each other and listened to all the various ideas. A ‘computer’ and a ‘piano’ appeared as well as the inevitable multi-storey car park, garage and car track. When someone came up with the idea of making one huge boat, things needed to be ordered, so an office was created which involved the use of a telephone, writing pads, pencils etc and of course, drawings to help design the boat. Once complete the epic voyage began. . . . . .

Simple beautiful wooden blocks, of all shapes and sizes, encouraged and enhanced all aspects of the children’s learning and continues to do so with other materials being used to build – sand and rocks in the Tuff spot, little cubes, as well as the Lego and Mobilo, all benefiting from renewed interest.