Block play.

Abstract

Children are natural builders. Constructing and deconstructing with blocks, children often test their theories about the physical and social world. They create block structures to share their thoughts, beliefs, and interests based on culture and experience, tempered by their developmental level. A child's innate impulse to construct with blocks starts early in life and appears to be a universal human tendency (Schaefer, 2016). Accordingly, this innate desire makes blocks one of the most versatile play materials available to children.Ample research supports the importance of block building in early childhood settings (Barton et al., 2018;Yelland, 2011), providing a normative context for children's play individually and collectively. Playing with blocks contributes to children's early mathematical development, including numerical knowledge, shape recognition, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving skills (