Making your own building block challenge cards is a great way to encourage collaborative play for kids of different ages!
We were kindly gifted this Blocks Rock! game for purpose of review. You can use code FINDMORE for 15% off on Amazon (cannot be combined with other Amazon offers). Or if buying during Amazon Prime Day week the game will be available for $39.99. All opinions and images are our own and completely genuine.
It can be tough to freshen up building block play as it is such a classic toy. We love using our Blocks Rock! game as it really focuses our play and offers an added challenge by having to copy the builds on the cards (read more here). We were inspired by the game to make some of our own challenge cards, and we even made them to scale so that 2 yr old baby sis could use them like a puzzle card!
What you need:
- Blocks Rock! game
- A4 white card or paper
- pencil
- markers (yellow, red, green, blue and purple)
How it works:
This could be done with kids of the same age or with younger and older kids. For us, 5 yr old big bro was in charge of creating the puzzle cards for 2 yr old baby sis. Big brother used a pencil to trace around the blocks on his A4 piece of card. The idea was that he was trying to challenge baby sis to use different color and shape blocks.
Once the pencil shapes were on the card, he went over them with the correct color marker. This was a great fine motor skill and mark making exercise for big bro. I loved watching as he carefully traced the lines!
Once he was finished making the puzzle card, he would give it to baby sis and she would attempt to make the puzzle with her Blocks Rock! pieces.
As baby sis was completing one puzzle card, big bro was already hard at work producing another one for her.
As soon as baby sis completed the puzzle, she got to ring the bell (that was of course her absolute favorite part!).
There was so much conversation happening between the two of them. They talked about colors, shapes and structures, big bro encouraged baby sis and gave her little tips to solve his puzzles, and baby sis was constantly giving a running commentary of the shapes and colors she was using. There was such a buzz of achievement between them.
It wasn't long before baby sis decided to try tracing the blocks too. She did a great job and even tried to add the colored marker lines as well.
This is a great example of being inspired by a game to extend the play and learning. Giving the kids ownership of their game meant they were both totally engaged. They had different tasks and played different roles, resulting in them both learning at a level appropriate to them. Giving big bro some leadership enabled him to get a sense of motivation and importance, while baby sis of course was captivated following his instructions. A definite winner for both ages!
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