More Than Play
BLOCKIMALS
Friendly animals, fun shapes and cool sounds…what a great way to learn about stacking, surprises and her ever-evolving senses!
Sweet and silly, fun and giggly, there’s a different animal inside each of these colorful stacking blocks. She’ll love reaching for and studying the different shapes of each geometric block. When she opens them up, “Surprise!” She’ll be delighted to discover a darling animal inside—each with its own exciting busy feature that can encourage hands-on play and development of her fine motor skills.
It’s More Than Play... This Toy Also Teaches:
Fine Motor Skills
Pincer Grip
Spatial Awareness
Problem Solving
Conceptual Thinking
Control of Muscle Strength
Hand-Eye Coordination
Fine Motor Skills
Developing fine motor skills takes lots of practice picking up small objects, opening containers, pulling things apart. Each of the BLOCKIMALS offers lots of finger-strengthening fun, with dials, rattles and clickers when they’re open, and block-stacking fun when they’re closed. Fine motor skills are the same skills that she’ll use one day for daily tasks requiring precision, such as using scissors or tying a bow.
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Pincer Grip
Picking up objects and learning to release them can be a tricky task. In early stages of development, babies grab or rake at objects using their entire hand. Later on, they learn to pick things up with their first finger and thumb. Experts call picking objects up in this way a “pincer grip.” As she opens and closes the BLOCKIMAL and explores the fun inside, she’s also practicing her pincer grip. The pincer grip makes all kinds of things easier—from plucking petals from a daisy to picking up a penny!
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Spatial Awareness
“If I stack a cube on top of a triangle, will it stay there, or come tumbling down? Can I fit the cylinder on top of the cube?” Understanding how much space things take up and the properties of different objects is a skill called spatial awareness. When children try to move objects around and fit them into particular spaces, they also learn about the spatial concepts of “directionality”—which way things need to go.
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Problem Solving
Problem solving develops through trial and error. It begins when kids play and learn from doing and redoing; experimenting and refining in a nonthreatening environment. “How do I open the block? What do I need to do to find my favorite animal inside?” Allowing children to make their own decisions and discoveries while playing, can help them begin to develop independent thinking and problem-solving skills.
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Conceptual Thinking
BLOCKIMALS are more than just hands-on entertainment—they’re great for hands-on learning, too. By handling each block, children learn what squares, circles and triangles feel like. Playing with BLOCKIMALS helps your child with the beginnings of concepts like geometrical shapes. These basic shapes with friendly faces, tails and limbs also help kids recognize basic orientation: front, back, top, bottom and sides. Notice all the things she can discover while she grabs them, stacks them and knocks them down!
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Control of Muscle Strength
Control of muscle strength allows us to know how much force to apply to an object. This understanding of our own strength is actually a learned skill that takes lots of practice to master. The BLOCKIMALS, with their open and close action, gives little hands lots of practice figuring out how much strength she needs to see which cute critter is inside, or pick up one block and stack it onto another. These actions help her learn about her own strength. Good control of muscle strength is critical for all sorts of other skills—from deciding how hard to hit a Ping-Pong ball to pouring a glass of juice.
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Hand-Eye Coordination
In order to stack, open and line up each BLOCKIMAL, your child needs to practice getting her hands and her eyes to work together. Hand-eye coordination is an important foundation skill necessary for success in all kinds of activities, from fastening the Velcro of her sneaker to lining up her crayons in the box.
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Learn more—together!
Want to join the fun? Playing with your child can boost her learning, and it gives her more time to bond with you! Try these simple tips to enhance your child’s play experience:
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Stack the blocks on top of each other. Then push them over and watch as they tumble to the floor!As your child picks up a block, tell her its shape and color. Ask her to repeat it after you.Teach your child about the sounds different animals make. Say the name of the animal, and ask your child to tell you what sound the animal makes. Talking while playing together with others is another important tool in language development.
