Stack play

Wooden blocks, rectangular mostly, being stacked on each other with nothing but gravity and friction at work. Outdoors, in the sun, on a lovely Sunday, with children at play.

The best kind of block play may well be stack play, even if lately I seem to have been mostly doing tech play (connecting things, especially with mechanisms involved). I've been doing pattern play lately as well, my third general category of block play (we'll get to that here again soon, I hope).

Today's outdoor exercise was partly inspired by some block construction designs I found online with a gaudy multicolor set of plastic blocks. I didn't like the blocks much, even if they were in legitimate unit block format, but the designs intrigued me - they are far more interesting than usually accompany block sets (click on image for a larger view).

So I printed them out, along with a guide to which blocks I would need, and made up an appropriate set from my unit block collection. It's actually a nice little set, once decolored - which shouldn't come as surprise given the quality of the constructions.

Once outside, I soon discovered that the concrete stepping stone I intended to use as a building surface was too uneven, so I built the cathedral on the box lid - which sagged, giving us a bit of an A-frame effect.

My neighbor offered up a sturdier foundation, and her younger girl offered assistance. Assistance quickly became supervision, and I found it best to sit back while she created "a whole family of houses." It was well worth the interuption to see real early-childhood block play in action. She's also a sweetie.

Once she moved on, I was able to go back to building the old fashioned gas station (top), followed by the chair & table, and the dog - though she did return periodically, demanding explanations as to what I was up to. She was especially concerned as to what dog that was.

Great block play.