Construction Toys: What Grade R Learners learn from them

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Construction toys are toys that children use to build things.Designed to teach children the basics of spatial awareness and how things are related to each other and work together. Construction toys teach the foundational skills required for later learning related to maths and engineering.

However, the skills they teach and the educational benefits they have go far beyond those gained by ‘making a tower’ or ‘making a house’.

Popular construction toys include Building blocks, ‘Lego’ and Magnetic tile toys (‘Magnatiles’)

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Educational Benefits of Construction Toys

Construction toys build skill, capacity, confidence in young children, in a number of ways.

Building things with construction toys encourages:

• Understanding of basic maths and engineering concepts (STEM skills)
• Understanding that things relate to and effect each other
• Imagination and creativity
• Creative problem solving
• Precision thinking (‘systematic thinking’)
• Fine motor control and manual dexterity (especially in very young children)
• Organisational skills
• Planning and self-discipline
• Confidence through control of the building components and how they relate to each other to achieve a goal

Benefits of Construction Toys in Grade R classrooms:

Construction toys are ideal for sole play or group play. They offer the same benefits in both situations, but in group play, building toys also teach crucial skills related to teamwork.

The importance of this is elevated by the fact the developmentally, Grade R pre-schoolers are primed to learn teamwork skills. Up until age 4 (the minimum age for Grade R) children are egocentric. If they see a child playing with a toy they like, they’ll try to take the toy. They can benefit from sole play with construction toys prior to age 4, but in Grade R, the sum of the benefits become greater with group play.

In Grade R, construction toys make the most of recently developed capacity for collaborative play.

Preschool children learn essential social skills through supervised and goal-oriented collaborative play. They learn to co-operate instead of competing. Construction toys are ideal in this situation – encouraging co-operative imagination, creativity and problem-solving toward a common goal.

When playing with construction toys, (building blocks) Grade R children learn to build together, achieve together and imagine together. They learn from each other as much as from their own efforts in a ‘group-centric’ rather than ego-centric way. They also have more fun playing together than alone – and fun increases engagement and learning dramatically.

Collaborative play with construction toys in Grade R builds crucial social skills and capacity while continuing to build on the many foundational ‘STEM’ skills, developmental and educational benefits that children learn from playing with educational toys.

When Grade R children play with construction toys, they start to learn almost every skill they’ll need to be successful through school and in later life - irrespective of whether they want to become a rocket scientist or an artist.

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