Building with Blocks
Overview
Building with blocks is ideal for promoting early geometric and Spatial Skills. When students build and explore with blocks, they also develop their Mathematical Flexibility as they test and explore their ideas.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this pre-K teacher leads a block building activity that promotes early math reasoning and Spatial Skills. By asking questions throughout the building process, she challenges students to think critically to solve the problems they encounter.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how Kapu Blocks allows learners to creatively build block towers. Through silly animations and changeable blocks, learners can customize the structures they build and develop their Spatial Skills.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Active Learning Strategies
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
When students explain their thinking process aloud with guidance in response to questions or prompts, they recognize the strategies they use and solidify their understanding.
Free choice supports learner interests and promotes the development of more complex social interactions.
Imagining allows students to step back from a problem or task and think about it from multiple angles.
Math games use numbers and Spatial Skills, allowing students to practice many math skills in a fun, applied context.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question.
