Toy block facts for kids

A set of blocks

Toy blocks (also building bricks, building blocks, or simply blocks) are wooden, plastic, or foam pieces of various shapes (cube, cylinder, arch etc.) and colors that are used as construction toys. Sometimes, toy blocks depict letters of the alphabet.

Educational benefits

Blocks with numbers, letters and pictures

• Physical benefits: toy blocks build strength in a child's fingers and hands, and improve eye-hand coordination. They also help educate children in different shapes.
• Social benefits: block play encourages children to make friends and cooperate, and is often one of the first experiences a child has playing with others. Blocks are a benefit for the children because they encourage interaction and imagination. Creativity can be a combined action that is important for social play.
• Intellectual benefits: children can potentially develop their vocabularies as they learn to describe sizes, shapes, and positions. Math skills are developed through the process of grouping, adding, and subtracting, particularly with standardized blocks, such as unit blocks. Experiences with gravity, balance, and geometry learned from toy blocks also provide intellectual stimulation.
• Creative benefits: children receive creative stimulation by making their own designs with blocks.
• Language skills: When children engage in regular block play, they will develop better language skills.

Types and manufacturers

The LEGO VLT model against the real Milky Way

No connectors

• Unit block is a popular standardized wooden toy block.
• Anchor Stone Blocks is a wooden block construction toy.
• Kapla is a wooden block construction toy.
• KEVA Planks is a wooden block construction toy.
• Froebel Gifts are a range of educational materials first used in the original Kindergarten.
• Montessori sensorial materials are a range of educational materials including wooden blocks.

Interlocking notches

• Lincoln Logs is a toy consisting of notched miniature logs.
• Stickle bricks is a plastic construction toy primarily intended for toddlers.

Interlocking studded bricks

• Kiddicraft Self-Locking [plastic] Building Bricks were marketed in the 1940s and 1950s.
• LEGO is a line of toy interlocking plastic building bricks.
• Lego clones imitate Lego's bricks.
• Rasti is an Argentine toy interlocking brick.
• Tente is a Spanish toy interlocking brick.

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